


Crossfire

by sassenachwriter



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Field Hospital, Set in France mostly, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-05-28 10:52:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19392637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassenachwriter/pseuds/sassenachwriter
Summary: Almost fifty years after the end of the war, Claire tells the story of the time she spent in the Army as a nurse and the love she lost.





	1. A Christmas Carol

**Author's Note:**

> One year ago, I posted my first fic 'The Writer Who Loved Me'. Thank you for still being here, reading and commenting, a year later! I hope you'll enjoy reading this one as much as I enjoyed writing it!

December 24th, 1992

For years, Christmas was a sad time for Claire Beauchamp Grey. Her husband was a police officer and worked almost every year on Christmas Eve. When he wasn’t there, Claire spent the night with her beautiful red-headed daughter, Brianna, cooking plum pudding and all kinds of traditional British food. She would tell her daughter to brush her teeth afterwards and they’d read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens together in bed. When Brianna’s eyelids became heavy, Claire kissed the top of her head and said goodbye. When she was sure her daughter was sleeping, Claire would sit by the window, looking at the snow falling on the city, and start to cry.

She would cry for hours until her head hurt and there were no more tears in her body. Years after Bree’s birth, Claire still cried like she did on that Christmas night. She cried from the pain, from a sense of longing for the lost love and for the family she could have had. John had been an amazing husband and her dearest friend, but he wasn’t him.

At seventy-four, Claire still loved to celebrate Christmas with her daughter as much as she had in years past, and she cooked with the same energy as she did when she was thirty. She lived alone in a little apartment in New York, while Brianna was a history professor at Harvard University. Even if they didn’t live too far away, it was still too far for Claire. The only thing in the world she loved as much as her daughter was Erin, Brianna’s twelve-year-old daughter.

Erin was a sweet girl who was passionate about everything, especially art. She wanted to become an actress and perform on Broadway when she was older. “It’ll be close to your home, Grannie. You’ll always be able to come see me play!” she exclaimed one day, shortly after she announced to her grandmother that she had been accepted into a theatre group. 

Erin had the most beautiful brown eyes, similar to Claire’s, but her hair was curly and red. The most glorious mop of red hair she had ever seen. Almost. Her smile was beautiful, showing off a row of straight white teeth, and her face was sprinkled with freckles. She was tall, taller than her mother. She looked just like her grandfather. 

Every Christmas Day since Brianna moved away with her husband, Claire invited them to cook and eat with her. Andrew Murray was always happy to see his beloved Mam 2, the nickname he liked to call her. He was like a son to Claire, and she was like the mother he never had. Ever since he met Brianna, Andrew and Claire had always been close. He had lost his mother at birth and grew up with a workaholic father. His wife’s mother was a second chance at experiencing maternal love 

Every year, it made Claire’s heart beam with joy to see her family reunited and happy together; even if John wasn’t there anymore, after passing away in 1969 from a horrible illness. 

Even if the sadness and longing were still present after all these years, Claire’s happiness in celebrating Christmas grew with every passing year. Even if he wasn’t there in flesh and bones, she knew that he was in her heart, always close when she needed him. With time, she learned to let go of the overwhelming feeling of missing him. With time, she accepted living her life without him, even if it wasn’t the plan they’d made all those years ago.

Claire was admiring the snow falling on New York City, her cup of tea in hand, when she heard knocks on the door. Before she could even move, Erin rushed into the arms of her grandmother. “Grannie! I missed ye so much!”

She was happy that Brianna had married a Scot. Of course, Brianna didn’t know her father was indeed a Scot, but she was happy that Erin’s accent was tinted by Scottish pronunciations and that Andrew had taught her to swear in Gaelic. 

“Hello darling,” she smiled, hugging her granddaughter back. “I’m so happy to see you! You’ve grown up so much since the last time I saw you!”

“Aye! I’m almost six foot tall, now!” she exclaimed proudly. 

“And you’re beautiful,” she said, kissing her forehead.

“Do you have something in the fridge?” Erin asked, running to the kitchen. 

Brianna rolled her eyes with a smile and came to hug her mother. “She never stops eating these days.”

“Merry Christmas, Mam 2,” Andrew grinned, kissing Claire on the cheek. He was a handsome young man with the most charming smile. She had known his grandfather during the war. He had lost a leg and it had been him who cut it off. Of course, Andrew didn’t know about that connection. 

“Merry Christmas, son.”

After exchanging greetings, the family made their way to the kitchen and while Andrew went to buy the last things on the grocery list, Claire, Brianna, and Erin started to cook. 

Erin went to put on a Christmas album and Claire froze when she heard the first notes. White Christmas by Bing Crosby. Every time she heard the bittersweet lyrics of this song, she thought of him. Of the Christmases spent together, of all the Christmases they had not spent together, and of all the Christmases they never will spend together.

“Mama are you alright?” Brianna asked, putting a hand behind her mother’s back. “You look quite pale.”

Claire managed a smile, looking into her daughter’s blue eyes. “I’m alright. I just need to sit down for a wee bit,” she said and walked to the chair.

Worried, Brianna went to fill a glass of water. She had heard a change in her mother’s voice in the past few months. She was more breathless when she spoke, and her voice was weaker than usual. She didn’t speak as much as she used to and she seemed to start to forget things. Brianna was worried that her mother had crossed a line and there was no turning back. 

“Thank you, darling,” Claire smiled in gratitude and drank from the glass. She was in good shape for her age. She had worked at the hospital until she was sixty-seven, and they had to kick her out because she didn’t want to retire. She’d always been in good shape and never stopping doing things that kept her young. But as the years went by after her retirement, she became less active. “I’m alright, I was just a wee bit dizzy, that’s all.” She smiled reassuringly and seemed to return to her normal colour. She gave her daughter a pat on the hand and went back to cooking. 

Andrew finally returned with the groceries and as the sun set, they prepared the table by the fireplace and ate their traditional meal, telling stories over the next few hours.

“I wish my father was here,” Brianna smiled nostalgically. 

Claire felt a pinch in her heart, but smiled in return nonetheless. “Me too,” she said. She did wish he was there. Claire didn’t know if she meant Brianna’s real father or her adoptive father — or maybe both — but she really did.

“I can’t believe it’s been twenty-three years already.” Brianna sighed. Andrew placed a hand on hers and smiled kindly at her. “Every Christmas, I think of him. Do you, Mama?”

She cleared her throat. “Do I think of your father? Of course I do! All the time,” Claire answered, taking a sip from her glass of wine. This time, Claire knew in her heart that she meant Bree’s real father. 

“When do we open the gifts?” Erin asked from the living room. She was sitting on the couch reading A Christmas Carol, a tradition Brianna had shared with her daughter. 

“Do you have gifts? Do you think ye deserve gifts?” Andrew teased his daughter.

“Well, if I don’t, you don’t either, Daddy.” She burst out a laugh.

“What? Ye have gifts for me, then?” he asked, surprised.

“Of course!” Erin smiled sheepishly. 

“Well, we’ll open them once Santa Claus puts them under the tree.”

“Daddy! They’re already under the tree.”

Brianna rolled her eyes, but Claire still saw the corner of her mouth curl up. “Tomorrow morning, Erin. That’s the tradition.”

“Can’t we open one tonight? Please! Please! Please!”

Brianna, Andrew, and Claire shared a look and Erin’s mother finally shrugged. “I guess we could do that.”

“Well, she can open my gift,” Claire smiled. “It’s the one with the snowman wrapping paper.” She pointed under the tree with a shaky finger. 

Erin got up and grabbed the gift before coming to sit at the table next to her grandmother. “Can I open it?”

“That’s what we just said,” Claire smiled teasingly. 

Even if she was twelve, Erin still was a child at heart. She was mature, she loved to read books that were hard for readers of her age, but that didn’t stop her from loving them and reading them multiple times. 

With an enthusiasm that made Claire laugh, Erin unwrapped her gift to see a beautiful pair of pointe ballet shoes. “Grannie!” she exclaimed. “They are so beautiful!” She sprang up and hugged her grandmother tightly. “Thank you so much!”

“You’re welcome, my darling. Your mother said you are quickly climbing the ladder. Soon you’ll be touring with Swan Lake.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” the girl chuckled.

“Alright. But I just want you to know how proud I am of you,” she said, kissing her cheek. Your grandfather would be so proud. Erin was good in everything that she did, especially ballet dancing, which she started as soon as she was able to walk. 

“Thank you,” she said, blushing slightly.

Brianna was looking at them with a huge smile on her face. She was happy that her daughter had the chance to know her grandmother. She didn’t have that chance. Even Claire didn’t have the chance to know her parents — they died when she was just five years old. Claire was an extraordinary woman. For many years after her father’s death, Brianna and her mother weren’t on good terms. All her life, she felt like her mother never truly loved her father or Brianna. She felt like her mother was living on another planet. Growing up, she realized that Claire was staying married to her father even though she clearly didn’t love him. Brianna could see he loved Claire — he was always kind and patient. He tried to bond with Claire, but Claire didn’t want to bond with him. When he died, years of repressed anger and sadness came to the surface and Brianna exploded. She was angry at her mother, she blamed her for her father’s death — until Claire got in a car accident and was sent to the hospital, three years after John died. Her injuries were only superficial, but Brianna was terrified. She broke down in tears and asked her mother for forgiveness. Ever since, they were inseparable. 

“But no dancing tonight,” Brianna ordered her daughter.

“But Mam!” she cried.

“She can dance for a bit,” Claire shrugged. 

“She’ll hurt herself. She doesn’t know the techniques.”

“I just want to try them.”

Erin danced for hours until everybody decided to go to sleep. Andrew and Brianna were sharing the guest room and Erin slept on the couch in the living room with Adso, Claire’s cat. 

It was a silent night and the young girl was sleepless. She couldn’t stop thinking about her shoes and how she couldn’t wait until she could put them on the next morning. 

Turning on her back, looking up at the ceiling, Erin listened to the sound of her father’s snoring and her grandmother’s soft and steady breath. The fire was still burning in the fireplace, lighting up and warming the room. The clock was ticking, making the minutes seem even longer. 

She couldn’t wait anymore. Erin walked on her tiptoes to her parents’ room and closed the door, before doing the same with her grandmother’s. She walked back into the living room and put on her shoes. She started to climb on her toes and soon, the steps became too easy; so she started to try and turn on her own. It was much harder than she thought it would be. 

After a few tries, it still didn’t work, but Erin never gave up that easily. She tried one more time, but she lost her balance and fell on the floor. She tried to stop her fall against the bookshelf, and thankfully only one book fell to the ground. She froze, but nobody in the apartment seemed to hear it. Without a noise, Erin grabbed the book to put it back on the shelf when a paper fell on the ground.

She bent to take it.

To Claire

It was written in old calligraphy and the paper was yellow. Those unique traits only caught Erin’s attention even more. She looked behind her shoulder, making sure her grandmother was safe and sound asleep, and sat by the fireplace. She opened the letter and started to read, her heart pounding in her ears. The date was erased, she could only read what seemed to be ‘45.

My Dearest Claire,

I should start this letter by telling you how things are here, but I cannot wait to say how much I miss you. I hope that you are getting better and that the nurses and doctors are taking good care of you.

Things are difficult here. I guess they have always been this way, but being with you only helped me see the best in things. Without you, without your whisky eyes looking at me working, making sure I am working correctly, I feel like I am doing this for nothing. 

I miss your presence, I miss the warmth of your body close to me at night. I miss your smile and I miss the feelings of your lips on mine. They are still burning since the last time you kissed me.

Thinking of you helps me make it through the days. It has been raining a lot recently and I am exhausted, but I only think about climbing on this ship and get back to you.

I promise you that when I come back and when you will feel better, I will marry you. If you want a big wedding, we can plan one. If you want just you, me, and a few witnesses in front of a priest, I do not mind either. All I need is for you to be here and to say ‘I do’. 

Erin couldn’t help but smile. John, her grandfather, was well known for his good sense of humor. She went on.

I think of the life we will have once this war is over. We will buy a house in the Highlands and you will have your wee garden there, and I will take photographs. Or we could buy an apartment in New York where you would work in a hospital and I would work for a local newspaper. Wherever I am, as long as I am with you.

I have to stop now, but know that I think of you every night and day and that I am counting the days until I see you again. I love you.

Yours truly,

Alex 

Erin’s heart skipped a beat. Alex?

Feeling dizzy, she put the book back on the shelf and returned to the couch. She hid the letter under her pillow and lied down, trying to think about what she had just read.

Alex. 1945.

She tried to calculate. Her mother was born in 1946 and Claire had married John in the same year. Was it possible that this Alex was her mother’s real father?

By the way he wrote the letter, he seemed very fond of her grandmother. And if she had kept this letter all these years, perhaps she was very fond of him too.

He wrote about marrying her. Claire had never been married before she married Erin’s grandfather. Had the man simply left Claire with the hope of marrying her? Or had he died during the war? She spent hours wondering what had happened to that man after he sent that letter. Who was he to her? Was he a secret admirer, or was he her lover? By the way he wrote about her body, she guessed they had shared a bed. Erin blushed, imagining her grandmother sharing another man’s bed. Certainly not Claire, she was very faithful. Yet, she started to think that perhaps she didn’t know her grandmother as well as she thought she did. 

She spent a troubled night, not sleeping much and tossing and turning on the couch. Right next to her pillow, there was a picture of a young Claire in a frame. She was wearing her combat nurse outfit, and Erin could see she was wearing red lipstick, even if the picture was in black and white. 

At seventy-four, Claire was still a beautiful woman. She was elegant — and even after all the horror she’d seen, her face was still young. But when she was in her twenties, Claire was breathtaking. Her mop of curls were tied under an army hat and her round whisky eyes were passionate, fiery, and intelligent. Erin could see herself in her grandmother. The corners of her lips were slightly curled up, giving her face a friendly look. Who is this woman? 

***

On Christmas morning, Erin wasn’t as excited as she usually was. She was tired, with deep lines forming under her eyes. There was a pit in her stomach whenever she looked at her grandmother. She wondered if her mother knew about this man. Probably not. Erin would have heard of him if so.

She unwrapped her gifts and faked smiles. The day seemed to go on endlessly until her family went to bed that evening. As soon as she heard her father’s snoring, Erin jumped off the couch and began searching through her grandmother’s books. There were many National Geographic magazines, dating from 1915 to 1992. There were piles of kitchen books and biographies about people from her grandmother’s time. There was no trace of any book or file about her years spent in the army. Claire rarely spoke of the time she was in France — and when she did, she never said much. The more she thought about it, the more Erin realized she knew nothing about her grandmother.

She knew Claire was born in 1918 in Oxford. Her parents died when she was five and she lived with her uncle in Egypt, where he worked at a university. The years after that were blurred. After the war, she worked at the hospital when Brianna started attending school, but soon resigned and began her journey through medical school. She knew her grandfather had encouraged her a lot and even helped her study. Those were the only bits of Claire’s life she knew. 

Erin suddenly felt bad. Along with her parents, Claire was the most important person in her life, and she knew nothing about her. She felt guilty for not caring enough about her grandmother to ask questions about her past — even if it was clear that Claire never wanted to speak about it. Erin was now starting to understand why.

***

As soon as the sun rose, Erin dressed and ventured out to Columbia University. In the library, she wandered around and asked for books about World War 2. The librarian led her to a vast section, and she spent the afternoon looking around. She knew her grandmother had been stationed in France, between 1942 and 1945. 

She discovered a book about a field station in Caen during the war. She took it and began rifling through the pages when her heart stopped. There was a picture of five nurses standing together, one of them being Senior Nurse Claire Beauchamp, as written under the picture.

Walking to the closest table, Erin started to turn and look carefully at every page. Her heart was beating fast. She was opening a chapter of her grandmother’s past that nobody had before and she felt like a thief, stealing this part of Claire that she clearly wanted to keep buried. 

She studied the names under every picture, looking for this Alex. She was hoping she’d see a picture of him, but the last thing she was expecting was a picture of him along with her grandmother. 

She was smiling like Erin had never seen her grandmother smile before. So was he. He was very handsome. His hair was cut short, but she could see it was culy. He was grinning. Claire was sitting next to him by a fire, a cigarette between her fingers. Doctor Alexander Malcom and Senior Nurse Claire Beauchamp, 1945.

Erin swallowed and closed the book. She took a deep breath and reopened the book, tearing the page off, and ran out of the library.

***

“Where the hell were you?” Brianna asked as soon as the young girl walked through her grandmother’s door from the library. Erin was shaking and her face was pale. “Darling,” Brianna said, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Erin didn’t stop to talk to her mother, but instead headed to the kitchen, where Claire was sipping her tea. Erin’s eyes never left Claire as she made her way to her. 

She sat in front of Claire and opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

Claire frowned. “Are you alright?”

“I… Grannie… Who is Alexander Malcolm?”

It was Claire’s turn to grow pale. So pale, that Brianna thought she was about to faint. Claire’s eyes went wide with shock and tears filled them. “H—how do you know?” she finally asked.

With a shaking hand, Erin put the letter down on the table in front of her. Claire gasped at the sight of it. “Where on earth did you find this?” She took it in her hand and held it against her heart, like she had just found something she thought she’d lost.

“It was in a book, on the shelf.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Brianna asked, coming to sit next to her mother. “You don’t look well, Mama,” she said and put a hand on her mother’s arm. 

“I’m…” Claire began to speak, but no words came out. Brianna looked from Erin to Claire and saw the letter in her hand. 

“Who’s Alex?” Erin repeated, her voice soft.

“Alex?!” Brianna asked. “Who the hell is Alex?”

Blinking, Claire looked up at her daughter. “He… he was the love of my life,” she whispered. 

A heavy silence fell over the room. Andrew was standing behind Brianna and came to sit by her side, curious to hear more. His wife, on the other hand, was quite shocked by this revelation.

“What do you mean?”

“He was her lover during the war…” Erin said, looking at her grandmother.

Nodding, Claire let a tear slip on her cheek. “Yes,” she said and cleared her throat. 

“Tell me about him, please?” Erin asked. Brianna went to protest, but she was speechless. Getting up, Andrew went to fill a glass of water for Claire. She thanked him and almost emptied it.

“Do you really want to know about him?” she asked. A smile was starting to light up her face at the mention of this man. “I haven’t talked about him to anyone for forty-seven years…” Claire took a deep breath. 

“Well, it all began in 1942, on a ship going from Scotland to France…”


	2. Chaos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading chapter 1! I hope you’ll enjoy this one :)

December 1992

“”NEEDED: 50,000 NURSES. NURSING IS NOW A BIG-TIME CAREER’, it said,” Claire smiled at the memory.

“When I looked at the journal, I felt my heart beat faster in my chest. As a nurse, when the United States joined the war against the Nazis, I knew it was my call to join, but I initially ignored it. However, I knew fine well my place was in Europe, close to the front line and helping wounded soldiers, not in the hospital I’d spent the last two years working.

So I bought the journal — and two weeks later, I joined the U.S. army.

At 18, I was kicked out of the orphanage, with no money, no home, and no job. I had to learn a profession so I could make money for a living, but I could not afford going to college, so I decided to go to nursing school. One of the mothers of the orphanage had told me that, with my interest in the botany class she taught, I would probably enjoy studying nursing; and, it was free. 

So, at twenty-one and after graduating from nursing school, I began working in a hospital in New York City. I worked long hours — twelve-hour shifts, and the other twelve hours spent on call. But it was fine with me. I earned enough money to rent a small apartment close to the hospital, and I became friends with one of the nurses, Paige, who was from Chicago. 

A few weeks after taking the oath to serve in the war, I was sent to Scotland, where I trained and learned about life on the field until I received a visit from the head nurse, who informed me she was being sent with a group of nurses to the front. I would be joining them.

After receiving the news, I sat on her camp cot and took a deep breath. I was off to a combat zone — where, unlike here in Scotland, real bullets, shells, and bombs would bring wounds and death every day.”

October 1942

The boarding was organized in alphabetical order. They were all nurses and doctors, all wearing oversized uniforms — looking around, searching for familiar faces. Claire saw none. 

Once she stepped on the boat, she put her suitcase in the ‘B’ section and made her way towards the section reserved for the nurses from her unit. She sat on one of the beds, nervously waiting for the boat to leave.

“Is this one empty?”

She looked up to see a red-headed nurse staring at her with a friendly face.

“It’s yours.”

Smiling, the woman sat on the bed and shoved out her hand to the Englishwoman. “I’m Geillis Duncan, from Edinburgh.”

“Claire Beauchamp,” she smiled back, “from New York.”

“You’re wearing the wrong flag,” she noticed, pointing to the American flag on her shoulder.

“Oh, well,” Claire blushed slightly, not used to having people taking such an interest in her. “I was born in Oxford, but I moved to New York when I was fifteen.”

Nurses were starting to fill the empty beds, making small talk with the girls that were going to be their family for the next several months. 

“I’ve always wanted to visit New York. I hear it’s a sensational city,” Geillis grinned.

“It is. There’s a lot to do. Great bookstores and bars.”

They chatted about their homes for hours, until the boat finally sailed and they were called for dinner.

Geillis was an extrovert, talking with every nurse sitting by them, making it easier for Claire to bond with them. They were all nice and seemed not to think too much about the fact that soon they were going to land on a war field. As they ate and chatted, Claire started to forget as well, until a giant, red-headed man in uniform came to sit next to them. He looked quite pale, his face white like a sheet.

“Are you okay, man?” Geillis asked him. 

He looked over at her, sighing. “Aye, just seasick.”

“Aren’t we all?” she joked. Many nurses had been sick during the first hours of travel. 

He forced a smile and looked down at the food on the plate in front of him. Claire studied him silently, looking at the way his short hair rebelliously waved. He was big, with broad shoulders and long arms crossed in front of him, wondering if he was going to eat what was meant to be food. The tag on his uniform said “A. Malcolm”.

Claire looked away and listened to the nurses talking about the excitement they felt going into this new experience. The Englishwoman never spoke, but she agreed with everything they said — except for the fact that she, unlike them, had no one waiting for her at home.

“What about you, doctor?” one of the nurses asked, “Have you ever seen the war?”

“Aye,” he said, looking up at them with a heavy expression, “and let me tell you, that you are all very naive. Yes, the first hours are exciting, but when ye see a young boy the age of yer brother die in front of ye, or when ye see yer best friend die in yer arms, ye’ll see there’s nothing to be proud of.” He rose and left the table, leaving them all speechless.

***

They landed the next morning after staying a few hours on the coast. Claire, Geillis, and the other nurses waited on the beach until they were picked up by jeeps, and they arrived to the camp just before dusk. They attempted to calm the lamentations of their bellies by eating canned food that only made Claire feel more nauseous. 

She had barely slept the previous night, unable to stop thinking about and ignoring the knot in her stomach. Now, she was exhausted and didn’t see herself going to sleep anytime soon. 

After eating, the nurses went in the tents to look after the patients. When she entered one of the tents, Claire covered her mouth and nose with her hand. There was a strong odor of filth and dirt, mixed with the odor of blood and stale urine. She heard a suppressed groan by one of the injured soldiers in a corner, and another one asking for water. She swallowed, feeling tears veil her eyes, and Dr. Malcolm’s words echoed in her mind. This was her new reality. Taking all the courage she had in her, she walked to one of the injured soldiers and started working.

When the sun rose, every soldier that was brought to their field hospital during the night had been taken well care of. Lacking the energy to clean up, Claire fell on the cot that would serve as her bed for the following weeks and immediately fell asleep, too tired to be haunted by the faces she’d just seen.

Two hours later, she was awoken by one of the nurses she had traveled with. She blinked, not sure if she was still dreaming. “Claire, they need you in surgery,” Louise said. 

“What?” she asked, confused. Louise grabbed her hand and dragged her out of bed. “I don’t understand,” she said as they were walking through the base, seeing it for the first time in the light of the morning. Tents were stationed everywhere, with red crosses painted on them. Nurses, doctors, and personnel were walking around, chatting with one another and some smoking cigarettes. 

“The surgical nurse just fainted and they need someone to continue the operation. You’re the most experienced one available.”

“What?” Claire was still confused with sleep. “But I’ve never worked in an O.R.!” she exclaimed.

The October morning breeze was making the sleepy nurse shiver, and the uniform she was wearing didn’t prevent the wind from driving the cold through her skin to the marrow of her bones.

“Well, you’ll learn in action!”

She opened her mouth to protest, but Louise accelerated their pace and entered the O.R. tent. 

“Here she is!” she told the doctors. Claire was surprised when she saw A. Malcolm look up at her. Suddenly, the nervousness she had just started to feel at the idea of operating turned into a dreadful feeling. She knew he would do what he could to make her understand that she knew nothing, that she had nothing to do on this field, and that she would probably be sent back to a Station General Hospital — or worse, back to New York. 

“Come here!” he said, and the personnel around him gave her space. She walked to the table where a man was lying unconscious, his blond hair dusted. “We have to amputate him,” Malcolm said. 

She felt her blood rush from her head. “I… I’ve never assisted in a surgery before,” she stuttered.

“I ken that, but do ye think ye’d be standing here if there was any other option?”

Claire looked down, her cheeks turning red, feeling stupid for what she said, and took place by the table. “Just make sure he doesn’t wake up,” the doctor said. 

The nurse wasn’t too sensitive about destroyed human anatomy — but for the first time in her life, she wanted to close her eyes when Malcolm cut that poor soldier’s leg off. When it was over, she cleaned the wound and bandaged his knee. When she was free to go, Claire run out of the tent and threw up, making sure nobody saw her. She had seen horrible things in New York, but nothing compared to the casualties she’d witnessed in the last twenty-four hours. For the first time in her career, Claire felt as if she knew nothing.

***

Claire spent the following day taking care of the wounded soldiers. It was a sunny day, welcomed after the freezing night she spent. Once the other nurses took their places, she and Geillis went to sit by the fire, eating the provided canned food. “I guess this will be the hardest adaptation,” the Scot sighed.

Smiling, Claire took a small bite, forcing the food down her throat. She cooked a lot, and even if she wasn’t the best cook in town, she was used to eating good food. Now, after she finished a can, she only wanted to throw up and eat more. 

They were both exhausted and wanted nothing but sleep and to bathe for the first time in days. Since the access to water was limited and the road to the water point dangerous, they only made the trip once a day. Perfume was the alternative discovered by more experienced nurses when there was no water to wash. They washed their hair when it rained and put on a turban the rest of the time because of the lice. 

No matter how tired or hungry Claire was, she knew she was luckier than the soldiers she was healing. 

After eating, the nurses retreated to their tents and slept while they could, until they heard the sounds of jeeps and trucks coming near the field hospital. Claire woke up, running a hand in the wild curls around her head. “Geillis, wake up,” she said. “I think they’re bringing new patients.”

They spent another exhausting night treating injured patients, giving them the only water they had, reassuring them everything was going to be alright, though they didn’t know if their words were true.

Twelve hours of work later, Claire walked out of one of the tents, searching for a place to calm the throbbing rhythm in her head.

She walked into a silent tent. There seemed to be no living soul in it. She sighed and sat on the floor, closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep until she heard a familiar voice call after her. “Nurse Beauchamp?”

She blinked, seeing the face of A. Malcolm staring at her with worried eyes. “What?” she asked.

“Come out of here. This is the morgue,” he said softly, putting an arm around her to lift her up. “Ye dinna need this after everything ye’ve gone through with the living patients.”

He helped her stand and walked her out of the tent. She was awoken by the cold breeze brushing her face. Looking at him, she felt her heart squeeze slightly in her chest. It was the first time she could recall someone acting so kindly and caring towards her. She was even more surprised at it coming from him. 

“Thank you,” she whispered once they were out of the morgue. 

He nodded, looking down at his feet. It was dark outside, but dusk still allowed her to see the shadow of his face. Even if the traits were hardened with war, he was very handsome. “You never told me your full name,” he said.

“It’s Claire. Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp. What about you?”

“I’m Alexander Malcolm. From Inverness-Shire. You’re not from the United States, are you?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. Even if the wind was chilling and her legs so sore she could barely stand, she enjoyed this moment with him. It was quiet, and the dark of the night was peaceful after the long hours spent working.

“No, actually, I am from Oxford.”

“I see.” She thought she heard a smile in his voice. 

They stayed a moment in silence, looking around the camp. Nurses and doctors were starting to go to sleep, while others took over the care of patients. 

“I wanted to apologize,” he said. “From the moment we met, I did nothing to help you feel better in this place. This place is ugly, but I ken I should’ve been nice and understandable.”

“It’s nothing, really, I—”

“No, my actions don’t reflect the person that I am. Or at least the person I try to be. If ye’d be willing to accept my apology, we could start over again.”

Claire couldn’t help but smile and feel her heart warm up in her chest, sending shivers down her spine. “Alright. I accept your apology,” she said.

She thought she heard him smile as he reached out his hand. She took it, the warmth of it welcomed against her freezing hands.

“Do ye want me to walk ye back to yer tent?” he asked. “It’s dark and yer tired.”

She wanted to protest, saying she could do it on her own; but deep inside, she knew fine well she wouldn’t mind him walking with her in the darkness of the night. “Thank you,” she agreed, and they walked in silence to the tent she shared with Geillis and four other nurses named Jean, Martha, Helen, and Claudine.

“It’s here… I think,” she said once they reached the tent she thought she remembered leaving the previous night. Or was it the night before? She had already lost track of time. “Thank you for walking with me. That’s very kind of you.”

“It’s the least I can do. Have a good night,” he smiled, “ye deserve some rest. Ye did great in the O.R. tent today. I think ye could become a surgical nurse, if ye like. When I amputated the soldier… ye did verra well. Better than anybody could have.”

“You really think so?” Claire whispered, not wanting to wake her roommates. 

“Aye,” he said honestly. “I do. Good night now.”

“Good night,” she said as she watched him head back to the O.R. tent. Once he was out of sight, she stepped inside, walked to her bed, and laid down, letting out a sigh. Her entire body was sore, her limbs heavy and her head throbbing. She wanted nothing more than to sleep far away from here. Safe in the warmth of her bed at home. Since she walked onto the land of her ancestors, a dreadful feeling that culminated in a heavy weight in her belly never left her. Any time, the field hospital could be attacked or bombed by the Germans. They were never safe. 

But the boys needed her, she told herself. And Alexander Malcolm had told her she could become a surgical nurse. She had never really thought about it before, satisfied with her job at the hospital: but now that he mentioned it, she liked the idea. Nobody had ever seen anything in her, but he did, and she realized that the idea made her smile in the dark. 

In the middle of the chaos of the night, there was still hope.

***

The following weeks were more relaxed, and Claire finally found time to sleep properly. She got to know the other doctors and nurses on the field, and even started chatting a bit with Alex Malcolm. 

She saw him one day walking around the camp with a camera. He was taking pictures of everything. Nurses, doctors, and even patients. People seemed to like him as a photographer, always happy when he was asking for a shot. 

Claire was eating canned food by the fire when he walked in front of her and bent down. “Do ye mind?” he asked, putting the camera over his face.

“Uh…” she was surprised and almost choked on the bit of food in her mouth. She forced a smile and he took a picture, laughing. 

“You don’t have to smile if you don’t want to. Just be natural.”

“Natural,” she chuckled nervously. “Why are you taking a picture of me?”

“So people remember,” he said, and while he had her attention, took another picture, and got up. “Thank you. I won’t share it if you don’t want to.”

“No, I don’t mind,” she smiled shyly. “It’s actually nice. Thank you.”

He smiled back and walked away to take another picture. She watched him and couldn’t help but smile, feeling beautiful.


	3. To Love and To Lose

They stayed in Amiens for a few weeks, always working twelve to twenty-four hour shifts. Days turned into weeks and Claire started to forget about her life back in New York. Nothing else mattered other than the injured soldiers in front of her. She started working more and more as a surgical nurse with Alex Malcolm and helped him with almost every one of his surgeries. They made a good team and she enjoyed working with him.

He was a mysterious man, that was for sure. He never talked a lot, but every word that came out of his mouth was captivating. When they were around other nurses or doctors, he rarely spoke, but when they shared a brief moment of privacy around a fire eating can food, he told her bits of his story and background and she found him to be the most interesting. 

Alex Malcolm was born in 1916 in a house called Lallybroch near Inverness. His father had died during the war and his mother lived with his grandmother in Scotland, even to this day. His sister had died while giving birth to her first child a few years before. He moved to Edinburgh to study medicine at University. He studied for a few years and with less than a year of experience working in a civilian hospital, he joined the British army in 1940. 

Based in France for a few months, Alex was forced to go back to Scotland after suffering from battle fatigue. He was away for almost two years until he joined the army again and was sent with Claire and other nurses of the British army in Amiens. 

After a few weeks spent in his ancestral home, Alex went to Greenock in Scotland to train doctors who were to join the field hospitals. He was happy to work for the army until he healed and it helped him a lot to get through the battle fatigue. In July 1942, the psychologist said that if Alex really wanted to go back to the front, he could, but had to take regular medication. 

He barely talked about himself, but he almost never asked questions about Claire. She wished he did, because it made her wonder if he had any interest in her or if he was simply too shy to ask. 

“Claire?”

She looked up to Geillis who was sitting on the cot in front of her, washing her face in her helmet. “What?”

“What were you thinking about? Your handsome doctor?”

“Please,” Claire rolled her eyes and lied down on her bed. It had been a good day. Sunny and warm enough to allow the nurses to bath in the nearest river. It was a marvelous feeling to be wearing clean pyjamas in a clean bed. A luxury they didn’t often had the chance to experience. “He’s not my handsome doctor. He’s a colleague. We’re all a big family.”

“Right. But he spends a lot of time training ye. Admit ye dinna hate it,” the red head grinned.

“Shut up, Geil, you’ll start rumours. And no, I don’t hate it. He’s teaching me a lot and I want to do surgeries.”

“It’s totally fine. We’re allowed to have fun from time to time. I bet he’s been teaching you about anatomy.”

The other nurses in the tent chuckled, making Claire’s cheeks turn red. “Please. How old are you? Five?”

Geillis got up and emptied her helmet before coming back to her cot. She walked by Mary Hawkins, a photographer from the Life magazine who had been sharing their tent for the past days. She was sitting on a cot in the corner of the tent, putting films in her camera. She was coming to take pictures of the field hospitals. Mary was shy and paralyzed by her stuttering, but nonetheless her pictures were breathtaking. “Don’t tell me ye’re still a virgin?”

“What?” Claire asked, shocked by Geillis’ question. “Why no, but not because I’m not… sleeping with the doctor, doesn’t mean I am,” she whispered.

Geillis chuckled and sat on her bed. “What about ye?” she asked Mary.

“Me?” the young girl looked up, blood rising to her cheeks. 

“You don’t have to answer her question,” Claire told the girl who simply nodded. “You’re cruel, Geillis Duncan.”

“And you’re boring, Claire Beauchamp. You have the opportunity to share something with a very handsome man. Trust me, it won’t hurt. You’ll glow. Look at me,” she said dramatically.

“You’ve been…?” Claire had had doubts about Geillis and one of the anesthesiologist named Jordie, but she had never asked, thinking it wasn’t of her business. Unlike her scottish friend, she wasn’t that direct.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Jean laughed from her bed.

Claire started to feel ridiculous. She put the cover on her shoulder and turned to face her friend. “You should be careful. Dating is not encouraged between the personnel of the hospital. I don’t want you to be sent away from me.”

“You’re not getting rid of me any time soon, Claire Beauchamp.”

***  
The next morning, they were all eating breakfast when Alexander Malcolm made his entry. At the sight of him, Claire’s heart skipped a beat. He was so handsome in the light of day, his fiery red hair shining under his helmet. His blue eyes piercing everywhere he looked. He filled a plate with bacon and eggs and gracefully walked to their table.

“Malcolm is on his way over here. Act normal,” Geillis whispered in her ear. 

Claire blushed, cursing in her head, and looked up at him. “Good morning,” she smiled.

“Good morning,” he smiled back and sat in front of her. “We’re lucky with breakfast this morning. It’s been ages since the last time I had a full breakfast like that.”

“It’s delicious indeed,” Geillis smiled, taking a bite of bacon. 

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence, at least, that seemed to be uncomfortable for Claire only, until Geillis spoke, making the moment even more awkward. “We were talking about something last night,” she started speaking, looking at Alex, “and we wanted to know the male point of view of it.”

“Geillis,” Claire warned her friend between clenched teeth.

“What is it?” Alex was unusually happy this morning, probably because they’d spent an undisturbed night, were now eating a good breakfast and it was a sunny day for March. 

“We were talking about love during the hard times of war. Nothing is guaranteed, we sometimes feel like we live on borrowed time. Anytime a bomb can drop and we could be gone in seconds. Do you think it’s worth the risk, to fall in love with someone you could lose any time?”

“Well,” he frowned, honestly interested in the question, “I dinna think ye can control falling in love. It happens and ye have to live with it,” he looked over to Claire —who had her face buried in her plate— before looking back at the red head. “Do I think it’s worth the risk? Ye mean do I prefer to love and lose to never love and never live with the pain that goes with losing someone ye love? Aye, I think it’s worth it. It’s better to love and to lose.”

Geillis smiled, touched by his romantic words. “I strongly agree. Claire, on the other hand, doesn’t share this opinion,” she said, poking her friend in the ribs.

“Ye don’t?” Alex looked over her and asked, surprised. 

She met his eyes and shrugged. “The pain of losing someone never leaves you.”

“So does your love for them. It’s always there, even if the person is not here anymore,” he smiled sadly, touching his heart.

“In most cases, this feeling is overshadowed by the pain of their loss.”

The corner of his mouth curled up in the most beautiful smile. “Weel… You’ll feel pain anyway. If ye never love, you’ll feel like yer missing something until ye find it. Have ye ever been in love?”

She felt her cheeks turn red and looked down at her plate. “Not enough to share your opinion, apparently.”

“Weel… I’ve been in love once,” he smiled. “It was a long time ago, but I still remembered every detail of it. The way my breath caught in my throat when I saw her, the way I couldn’t help but smile sheepishly when she talked to me and the way my stomach turned into knots when I thought of her. Love makes ye happy, even if this person doesn’t love ye back. It makes ye feel alive.”

She looked deep into his eyes and felt her heart sink, hearing him talk about feelings he had had for another woman - feelings she had for him. 

“Love hurts anyway, Lieutenant,” he smiled softly, before taking one last bite of his breakfast and getting up. “So, yes. I’d rather love and lose, than never love. I hope one day ye’ll love someone strong enough to feel the same way.” 

***

For the following months, Claire was confronted with the mixed feelings she had for him, but she had to admit to herself at some point that she indeed was in love with him. Deeply and passionately. When they weren’t together, she was always thinking about him. About what he’d told her during their small conversations, about the way his face lit up when he talked about his family. He was always on her mind and she was deeply hoping he shared those feelings, even if only just a tiny bit.

He wasn’t right. Being in love was the worst feeling she’d ever felt in her life. It wasn’t safe. She knew she would do anything, even the craziest things for him, even if she knew he didn’t think about her when they were apart. She knew her heart would eventually break when he’d start to go out with one of the nurses or when he would be sent away. He was wrong. It hurt more to love and not being loved back than never loving. 

Yet, she couldn’t help but feel happy and smile like an idiot when he was near her and it gave her mind and heart a break from the atrocities they had to deal with on a daily basis. And just as she was starting to surrender to this feeling, she learned the most horrific news.

“They’re sending me away,” Alex told her. “To Italy. They want an experienced surgeon to go with the army from Sicily up to Rome. I’ll be with the American army. It will be their first time in Europe, but they’re not ready for this.”

He talked, but she stopped listening and looked as his hands worked on their patient. She didn’t know why he’d thought telling her during a surgery was a good idea, but it absolutely wasn’t. Unless once again, he had underestimated her feelings for him.

She stayed silent and swallowed.

Italy.

She’d heard terrible things about the battles fought in North Africa by the Americans and even if France wasn’t the safest place, it was better than there. 

“One of the patients, the one who was shot in the shoulder...” she changed subject, not able to control the shaking of her voice. She knew she would have to face the news very soon, but she knew that if they kept talking about it, she would break down in tears in front of him and it was the last thing she wanted. 

Once the surgery was over, she didn’t say a word to him and ran to her tent. Falling on her bed, she started weeping. She couldn’t help the tears streaming down on her face. She didn’t want him to leave her and even less to join the most dangerous operation led by the U.S. army.

She couldn’t help but feel like he was leaving her, even if he probably didn’t want to leave the field hospital and the small family they had become over the months. Claire had never had a family before, she never had someone caring for her the way Alex did, talking with her and teaching her medical things because he could see she was interested and because he believed in her. When he told her he was leaving and the way he said it - as if it was something ordinary - made her feel like she was five years old again. He wasn’t even gone yet and she felt lost. Claire had never cared much for anyone before. And now that she did, he was going away. One of the very few positive things in her life that made her hold on. 

She eventually fell asleep and was awakened by Geillis shaking her shoulder. “Claire,” she whispered.

Opening her eyes, Claire could see it was daytime and she had probably slept for long. “What is it?” she asked, worry starting to creep in her chest. 

“It’s Malcolm. He’s leaving. If you want to say goodbye, it’s now or never.”

She didn’t want to see him right now, but thought it would be immature to let him go without a proper farewell. 

Walking out of the tent, she was once again struck by his beauty and the kindness that emanated from him. She took a deep breath and walked to him. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t told her before. Clearly, he hadn’t been told he was leaving the night before. She felt angry, but mostly let down by this secret he had kept hidden from her. Not only because she was in love with him, but because nobody would be teaching her about surgeries anymore. At least, nobody would care about those lessons as much as Malcolm did. 

When he saw her, a shadow veiled his eyes. He walked away from the jeep and met her halfway. Geillis smiled at him, putting a hand on his shoulder before walking away. Claire and Alex stood alone in silence. She couldn’t meet his eyes, looking down at her feet.

“Take good care of yerself, Claire.” His voice was so kind she couldn’t help but feel her heart sink in her chest.

“You too,” she managed to say.

He took a step forward. “I ken this is disappointing. I dinna want to leave, ye know. But I think at some point it was inevitable in times of war.” She didn’t say anything, crossing her arms on her chest. “I hope I’ll see ye again.”

He kissed her forehead and walked away. A tear slipped on her cheek and she wiped it in a swift movement, hoping nobody had seen it.

Looking up, she saw him climb in the jeep and the driver turned on the engine. “Alex-” she called after him, but her voice was stuck in her throat. He didn’t hear her and drove away, the sun catching in his fiery hair until he was out of sight.

December 1992

There was a heavy silence in the room as Claire took a deep breath before drinking more water. She had been talking for hours now and everybody was captivated by every word that came out of her mouth.

For years, she had kept his existence to herself. Ever since John and her decided to stop talking about their lost love, she had never spoke his name out loud. Now the door was opened and she couldn’t stop talking. Every word came out so easily. For years, she thought about the day she would tell her daughter the truth about her father. Every time she imagined how the events would turn, the discussion ended in screams, tears and insults. So far, Brianna was listening carefully, never interrupting her -which was something that rarely happened- and even if her eyes were veiled with tears, she knew she wasn’t judging her.

Brianna had never felt a connection with her mother until the car accident. And even after, Claire knew that until she would know the truth about her past, about her origins, they would never truly bond. For years, Brianna had tried to learn more about her identity. She spent a university semester in Oxford, her mother’s hometown, and traveled for a few weeks in London with her boyfriend of the time, hoping she’d learn more about herself. Maybe she was finally receiving answers to her unspoken questions. 

“Was this the last time you saw him?” Erin finally asked, breaking the silent.

The corner of Claire’s lips curled up. “At the time, I thought so. My heart was breaking, you know. I was angry at him. It was the first time I was in love and it was ending dramatically. It was ending before it even started. I wanted to follow him. Go in Italy and operate with him again.”

She frowned, trying to remember the exact feelings she had felt at the time. “I couldn’t go back to where I was before I met him. I wanted nothing but to do surgeries. When I thought I wasn’t born to do great things, he saw something in me. Something I didn’t even see in myself.”

Her voice started shaking. She hadn’t cried since she started telling her story, but the easiest part was behind her now. The following events were saddest ones. 

“After invading Sicily, Alex was sent to the Anzio beachhead. In just a few days, the field hospital he was stationed at was bombed three times. Many died on that beach. There were more deaths than victories for the Americans and the Allies. They called the beachhead ‘Hell’s Half Acre’. So you can imagine how I felt like when Geillis told me about it. I could barely sleep at night, thinking of him. Wondering if he’d been killed during the day. Wondering if he was going to get killed the day after. You have to understand that if you weren’t at least injured on that beach, you were more than lucky.”

Everything was coming back to her now. The worries that had almost killed her, always scared to hear bad news when she saw an officer coming to the field. 

“I regretted not telling him goodbye. Truth is… I’ve never been very good at saying goodbye,” she shrugged, her voice strangled. “I kept telling myself ‘What if he dies? He’ll never know how I feel.’” 

She stopped talking, lost in her mind, reliving the events following Alex’s departure for Italy. Nobody dared to disturb her with a stupid question.

“He was right, you know. Damn him,” she smiled sadly. “He was right that it was better to love and to lose. I learned it. And even now, after all the pain and death and heartbreak that followed, I still would make the same choice.”


	4. Love in a Photograph

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and leaving comments!

January 1944

When Alex was buried in his foxhole, hearing anti personnel bombs being dropped on the field hospital, the only thing that could stop his heart from hammering in his chest was looking at her. With a shaky hand, he took the photograph out of his pocket and locked eyes with her.

Her shy smile reassured him immediately. For a moment, he could forget about everything that was going on around him. He didn’t hear the bombs, didn’t hear is partner’s soft prayers, the soldiers’ cries up there. There was only those beautiful whisky eyes and her beautiful mouth, the corners slightly curled up. 

Everytime he looked at the picture, he didn’t feel any weight on his chest and suddenly could take a deep breath. She was his only reason to stay alive. He wanted nothing more than to get away from this damned beach, go back to France and take her in his arms and tell her he loves her. If she loved him back, they could get married in secret. 

He regretted not telling her about his feelings before leaving. Of course, he never thought he would be risking his life this much when he joined the American army, but now he was afraid to die without telling her he loved her. He had been planning on asking her out during the next permission, but his departure had been so rushed, the words hadn’t come out of his mouth.

Everytime he closed his eyes, he saw the look on her face the last time he saw her. Her eyes so sad it broke his heart just to think about it. He never wanted to cause her pain.

Alex swallowed and put the picture back in his pocket. 

“Your girlfriend?” The young officer in the foxhole with him asked.

“No,” he said, putting his arms around his knees. 

“She doesn’t know you like her?” 

He shook his head. “I left before telling her.”

“You should write to her. I’m sure she’d be happy to receive news from you,” he said. They stayed silent for a moment, listening to the sound of the bombs exploding near them. The young officer swallowed. 

“She probably forgot about me already. I haven’t seen her in… almost a year now,” he sighed. 

“Of course she didn’t forget about you. Even if she did, I think she would be happy to know that you are still alive. In times like these, we hold on anything we can.”

Alex looked at the young boy. He didn’t know much about him other than his name, Fergus, his nationality, French and that he was a technician for the field hospital. 

“I guess you’re right,” he whispered. He had never thought about writing to Claire, but now that Fergus had mentioned it, his heart started hammering in his chest at the idea. He hadn’t been in contact with her in months. He had never talked about her even if he terribly wanted to. He wondered where she was, if she was doing surgeries again, if she was training. Most importantly, he terribly needed to know if she was still alive. He never dared to ask, afraid of the answer. If she was dead, there would be no point for him to be alive. 

After he got out his foxhole, Alex was busy in the OR tent for hours, hours he spent thinking whether he should write to her or not. He made up sentences in his mind, sentences he would write in the letter, but all of them seemed insignifiant. 

The day went on and Alex decided he prefered to imagine Claire was alive than knowing she was dead.

He never wrote to her.

A few weeks later, his team boarded on a ship that would bring them to a new field hospital. The Germans decided not to respect the terms of the Geneva Convention and bombed the ship. On that day, Alex saw his best friend of the past weeks burn alive in the ship. When he evacuated, Alex jumped in the chilly water and stayed there for a while, waiting for back ups. He finally swam to the beach and lied down for hours. After almost dying once more, Alex decided it was time.

That night, after supper, Alex sat in his tent and wrote a letter to Claire, hoping she would live to read it. 

***

Claire spent the months following Alex’s departure to Italy training like never before. She badly wanted to become the best surgical nurse and climb the stairs to become chief nurse. 

She didn’t really know the motivation behind this desire, whether it was to impress Alex should he return or whether to continue what he had started with her. Whatever the reason was, she was glad to be accomplishing this. 

She became a Senior nurse and was awarded with medals. She was honoured, but every time, she wished he was there. 

Claire spent nights awake, trying to remember her face. With time, it was starting to fade away from her memory. She didn’t want it to. She wanted to remember every single detail of his face. The blue of his slanted eyes, like a cat’s. The red of his brows. His eyelashes, near black at the tips and blond at the roots. The only thing she wasn’t afraid she would forget was his hair. The most glorious mop of red hair she had ever seen. Geillis had often joked, saying his hair would get him killed, the only red spot in a forest the Germans would see. 

Everytime she thought about the possibility he had died, her breath would get stuck in her lungs and she would feel like drowning, like when she was a kid, swimming at the beach with her parents. 

Before he left, the constant noise at night of tanks, vehicles and troops moving past the hospital to the front never really bothered her when she tried to sleep. But now, it drove her crazy.

“I think he wants us to get married.” Geillis whispered.

It was the middle of the night and every nurse in her tent was sleeping. Claire had thought Geillis was sleeping too.

“What?” She asked in a sleepy voice, slightly confused.

“Jordie. I think he wants us to get married.”

“What do you mean?” Claire turned on her side to face Geillis. It was dark in the tent, she couldn’t even see the shadow of her body.

“He’s been talking about the future a lot recently. About what I want to do once we win the war, if I want to go back to Scotland or if I want to move to America. He’s never asked such questions before. I think he’s planning on proposing.”

“You don’t seem to be too excited about this,” the english nurse remarked. 

Her friend stayed silent for a moment and sighed. “I don’t know, Claire. I haven’t really been thinking about this. Jordie is sweet and I like him, but will it still work when we go home? What if what we have is just… Something to hold on to get through this bloody war?”

It was Claire’s turn to stay silent. She could only think about Alex. She envied her friend, to be with a guy she liked. Claire wished she was at her place with Alex, making plans for the future. She knew the chances they had of having a future together were small. 

“So what will you do?” She finally asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to break his heart. I don’t want him to think he doesn’t mean anything to me. Because he does. He really does. I honestly don’t know what I would do without him.”

“So if he does ask, say ‘yes’, then.”

“Right. And what about you?”

“What?” Claire asked.

“Do you love him? Your ginger-haired laddie, Alex? It’s his name ye cry out in yer sleep.”

Claire froze, feeling her heart start to hammer in her chest. She was glad it was dark so her friend couldn’t see the crimson colour of her cheeks. “I didn’t know I did that.”

“Aye, ye do,” she heard a smile in her friend’s voice. 

“I’m worried he’s dead.”

“Ye would know by now,” Geillis said, her voice strangled at the idea that their friend could be dead or a prisoner of war. “No, I’m sure he’s being careful not to die and wants to come back to you as soon as he can.”

“Why do you say that?” Claire asked, trying to hide the hope in her voice even if she knew it was useless. She was an open book to everyone, especially to her friend Geillis.

“Because he likes ye.”

Claire chuckled nervously, pretending what she was telling her didn’t matter. “Why do you say that?”

Geillis sighed. “How can a smart lass like ye be so ignorant? Christ, Claire. Didn’t ye see the way he looks at ye? Why do ye think he spends all his free time teaching ye about surgery?”

“Why?”

“Because he wants to spend more time with you, you fucking idiot.”

“You really think so?” Claire asked after a moment of silence.

“No, I don’t think so. I know. It’s pretty obvious from over here.”

If Geillis was right, Claire knew she had to do something. She had to try to reach Alex, she had to know if he was still alive. “What should I do?”

“I don’t know… Write to him, maybe? Ask how he is doing, ask for news. He’ll be happy to know you think of him and miss him.”

***

After spending the day operating, Claire sat by a fire, a sheet of paper on her lap and a pen in hand. Her heart was hammering in her chest, wondering what exactly she was going to write to him. 

Dear Alex, she wrote, but immediately erased it. 

Alex, she started writing. I hope that you are doing well, wherever you are. I’ve been thinking about you recently. She stopped writing, thinking about what she was going to say next, but nothing came to her mind. Blank. She erased it.

Alex,

I am writing to you because I have been thinking about you recently. I was awarded with a medal and I am now a Senior nurse. I thought I would let you know.

Too much about me, she thought.

Sighing, she gave up and was about to throw the paper in the fire when she was surprised by the sound of air raids flying over the hospital and a bomb dropping near her. 

She was projected a few feet from where she had been sitting. Her ears ringing, Claire ran to her tent and jumped in the foxhole, putting her suitcase on top of it. 

Closing her eyes, she listened to bombs being dropped on the field. She started praying for the nurses, doctors and staff, but also for the wounded soldiers. She prayed they would be safe. 

For the first time since she joined the army, Claire was really afraid she was going to die. The bombs seemed to drop closer to her tent. 

Closing her eyes, she put her hands on her ears, but it didn’t stop her from hearing the terrifying noise. Like everytime she needed him, Alex came to her mind. She thought about their time spent together, their chats around can food or during surgeries. 

She thought about his shy smile and the beautiful sound of his laughter. Her eyes closed, she could almost feel him here with her. She was terrified, alone in her foxhole. She didn’t want to die alone in this terrible place. 

Claire waited and waited. It seemed like time had stopped. Every minute spent in the dark felt like a thousand years. She felt tears in her eyes, threatening to roll down on her cheeks. She closed her eyes tighter, fighting them back. She didn’t want to cry. She couldn’t cry. 

Trying to change her mind, she thought about her parents. She found herself wondering what they would think of her. Would they be proud? She knew for Americans, being a nurse wasn’t the most noble job for a woman, especially in the army. Even if she never had the chance to know them much, she thought -or at least she hoped- they would be proud of her. 

Hours later, an officer finally came searching for her. 

“You have no bloody idea how happy I am to see you, officer,” she said when he helped her out of the hole. 

“Same to you, lieutenant.”

Looking around, Claire saw the damage that had been done to the field. “Jesus H. Christ,” she muttered as she walked around the camp. Her heart was breaking, heavy in her chest at the sight of the destruction. She swallowed, tears threatened once more. 

“Claire! Claire!” She turned around and saw Jordie running in her direction. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Have ye seen Geillis?” He asked, breathless. 

“What do you mean? She wasn’t with you?”

“I thought she shared your foxhole?”

“Well, yes, but I thought she was with you when the bombing happened?”

He shook his head and worry filled his eyes. 

Claire swallowed, feeling suddenly nauseous. It seemed the world was spinning around her and she felt dizzy. “She must be somewhere…” she muttered, suddenly feeling weak. She blinked. She had to regain her strength and go find her friend. 

For hours, Jordie and Claire searched for Geillis, but she was nowhere to be found. 

Finally, just when sun was setting, Claire found her. She lifted the sheet off one of the bodies and saw her friend. 

She felt like her heart stopped beating, her breath caught in her throat. This time, she didn’t fight the tears that veiled her eyes. “Oh God,” she cried, putting a hand on her mouth. She couldn’t believe what her eyes were seeing. “What happened?” She asked the officer in the morgue. 

“We found her under one of the tents,” he answered, a shadow crossing his face. 

Claire put the sheet back on her friend’s face and ran out of the morgue. She ran to an isolated spot near her tent and broke down in tears. She cried all the tears she could cry, for her friend who had died at such a young age. But mostly, Claire cried because she had lost the only two people she had loved in her life. 

***

They buried Geillis and the officers that had died during the bombing. After simple funerals, Claire went on a walk with Jordie. The poor lad was heartbroken. He told Claire he was about to propose to Geillis. He was in love with her and wanted to spend the rest of his days with her more than anything in the world. 

“She knew you love her, Jordie. Trust me she did. And she loved you as well. She was always telling me how wonderful you are.”

He nodded, fighting tears. 

Talking about her friend in the past tense made Claire’s eyes veil with tears once more. It would take some time before she got used to it. 

“I’ll write to her family. I have met them, you know? We spent a weekend in Scotland and her mother really wanted to meet me. I think they liked me.”

She put a hand on his shoulder and smiled sadly. 

They saw an officer walking towards them. It was the mailman. “Claire Beauchamp?” He asked. 

“It’s me,” she answered, surprised. Since she had joined the army, no one had ever sent her anything. 

“I have a letter for you.” He handed her an envelope and when Claire who had sent it, she almost fainted. 

“Excuse me, Jordie,” she said and walked away without even looking at him. 

Her heart beating fast, she sat on a bench breathless because of the small walk. 

Opening the envelope, she saw it contained a letter. 

Dear Claire,

I am very sorry it took me so long to write to you. We have been very busy here and it seems we never stop working, even more than in France. 

I was wondering if you are still practicing for surgery and if yes, how it is going. I do hope you assist surgeries by now. You are very talented and a very good nurse to work with. 

Hopefully, everybody is doing well at the hospital. I hope I will soon be able to come back. The sun here is too hot and the nights too cold. 

I hope to hear from you soon. 

Regards,  
Alex Malcolm


	5. A Day in Paris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

December 1992

“After Geillis passed away, I started talking more with the other nurses in our tent. We were all mourning her and we thought that carrying her loss together would perhaps be easier.” 

After crying a few tears for her redhead friend, Claire went on with her story. “I started hanging out with Louise, the French nurse who had brought me to the OR the first time, I don’t know if you remember her?” Everybody nodded, again captivated by Claire’s tale. “We had never really talked before, but one day we started chatting about the weather and we became inseparable. We spent all our free time together and she had also known Geillis from their time based in England before the war, so she shared my pain.”

“She was a pretty girl. With brown hair, brown eyes and high cheekbones. She was always smiling and humming tunes, walking around the hospital. The soldiers liked her very much. Louise was charming and it seemed like she could cast a spell on every person she met. Everybody wanted to be her friend,” Claire smiled, remembering how her friend was walking around the camp. Seeing her, people could forget they were close to the front lines of a bloody war.

“You see, I was quite shy at the time. I didn’t talk to people that much, so I never thought Louise would be interested in talking to me. But one morning, I was eating breakfast when she came to sit next to me and we talked. At that moment, we became friends. We could talk about anything. I told her about my parents and my upbringing in an orphanage. She told me about growing up in Paris in a rich family and how her parents almost killed her when she told them she was joining the army as a nurse. I wished Geillis was still there and we could hang out the three of us. I always thought it would have been nice, you know? Eventually, we started talking about our love life. She was a beautiful woman, that was sure, and she used it to charm young men,” Claire chuckled, “a bit like Geillis would do. One day, I told her about Alex. She laughed at me, saying I was naive to think she had no idea what was going on between the two of us.”

“Claire, everybody knows.”

“What?” 

They were sitting by the fire, eating can food and trying to get warm. It was a cold March day and it had been raining all day long.

“That you have feelings for Alex and that he has feelings for you, obviously,” Louise said with a thick french accent. “You have to be blind not to see it.”

Claire blushed, looking down at her feet. There was no point in denying it. She couldn’t lie and truth was, she didn’t want to lie. She wanted to talk to her about him and the conflicted feelings she had for him. She needed to badly. 

“I received a letter from him, the other day. A few weeks ago, actually.”

“Did you write back?” she asked, eating a bit of her food.

“Yes, but my letter was sent back to me.”

Louise frowned, suddenly panicked. “He’s not…?”

Claire shook her head. “No, I don’t think he is, but they couldn't find him. He’s not in Italy anymore and they don’t know where he is.”

“Do you think he’s been taken as a POW?”

“I really don’t know…”

After that evening, Louise knew how important it was for Claire to talk about it so she asked questions and listened to her when she needed to talk. Fortunately, they both were transferred to the field hospital in Caen in May 1944.

“On September 5th of the year 1944, we received permission to visit Paris. It was exciting, I remember Louise telling me how she couldn’t wait to show me around her hometown, now that Paris was free from the German occupation. The soldiers who had been to Paris often talked about the life there. The city life, the food and the women,” Claire chuckled. “We had only one day, but it would be enough, just to be far from the front lines for a moment, pretending there was no war going on and that millions of people were not dying while we were having fun.”

Claire took a deep breath and Brianna noticed her cheeks were slightly turning pink. “We were invited by a middle aged French woman who, when we told her we had no place to stay for the night, invited us in her house, saying she would gladly give shelter to army nurses. We ate a wonderful meal, the best I had had in months and Louise asked the woman if she had dresses. Louise wanted to go out for the night.”

September 1944

“A dress?” Claire whispered to Louise when Madame Hildegarde got up looking for des vêtements chics. 

Louise grinned, like every time she was planning something.

“What do you have in mind, this time?” Claire rolled her eyes. 

“We’re going out and you can’t say no.”

She sighed. The last thing she wanted was to go out again after spending the entire day walking around the city. She was tired and wanted to take a long bath before lying down in the giant bed she was sharing with Louise and slowly fall asleep. Going out in a dance hall with strangers was the last thing she wanted. She didn’t want to go in a noisy place and instead, for the first time in months, just enjoy a quiet evening like she was used to in New York.

“I thought we were going to stay here and paint our nails?”

“Change of plans! Believe me, you’ll thank me later,” Louise smiled as Madame Hildegarde came back with dresses on her arm. 

“These belong to my daughter, but I am sure she would be honoured for you to wear them. So there is this lovely red dress,” she said showing them a beautiful dress. It was knee-length, the neckline was plunging and there was a cute belt around the waist. Claire had to admit it was beautiful.

“This one will be for Claire,” Louise smiled. 

***

Claire could barely follow her friend in the streets of Paris. It was dark, but people were outside, celebrating. 

Louise was walking fast and Claire was running after her, the red heels Madame Hildegarde had given her were hurting her sore feet. “Louise, why are you going so fast? The dance hall won’t disappear.”

“I don’t want us to be late.”

“Late for what?” Claire cried. Even if she had bathed and washed her hair before going out, she wished she was in the warmth of the bed. “It’s not like we have a date waiting for us.”

“Actually…” Louise chuckled. “Why do you think you dressed up like that?”

Claire stopped walking and crossed her arms on her chest, forcing her friend to stop as well and turn around, sighing. “What, now?” Louise asked, impatient.

“You planned a date for me?”

The French woman shrugged, a playful grin on her face. 

“Loulou, you know I don’t want to go out with soldiers.”

“This one is different. You have heard about the new surgeon being transferred to our hospital? I heard he will be there.”

Claire felt her eyes veil with tears. She had heard about it and ever since, her heart had been breaking every time she thought about it. Deep in her heart, she was hoping it would be Alex, but she knew the chances were low and if she was expecting to see him again, her heart would only break again when she would find out that the new surgeon is not, in fact, Alex Malcolm. 

Yet, hope was the only thing that was keeping her alive.

“Oh, Claire,” Louise came to hug her when she saw her friend’s face change. “Don’t be so sad, ma chérie. Soon, it will be over. Trust me. I know you are tired and just want to go home, we all do right now. You will go back home, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun in the meantime? We never do, always concentrated on our patients and on surviving. This dance, even if you hate dancing, will give you some joy.”

Claire nodded and smiled at her friend. “You’re right.”

Smiling back, Louise kissed her cheek and wiped a tear away before taking her hand. “Now let’s go.”

***

It was noisy in the hall and Claire had to take a deep breath before walking in. As she followed her friend to a table, she could see all eyes on her and heads turning. She blushed, her cheeks turning the colour of her dress. 

“Sit here, I’ll come back in a minute.”

“Wait!” Claire called after her, but her friend was already running away. Minutes later, Louise came back with drinks. 

“Two martinis. Extra strong. Perfect to start off the night. Santé,” she lifted her glass and clicked it with Claire’s.

Chuckling, Claire relaxed and clicked her glass with Louise’s before taking a long sip. “Mmm, that’s good. Finally, I’m glad we’re here. I’m not sure Madame Hildegarde has much alcohol in her house.”

“See,” Louise flashed her teeth at her, “I’m always right. Especially when it’s time to go out and have fun.”

As the evening went on, Claire could feel her friend was restless, always looking around and checking her watch, not listening to a word she said. 

“Louise?” She finally asked, her voice impatient.

Looking at her with her innocent puppy eyes, Louise asked bluntly, “What?”

“What? You’ve been preoccupied all evening long. What’s going on?”

Waving her comment off, Louise smiled. “Nothing, chérie. Just looking out for men.”

Lifting an eyebrow, Claire lifted her third drink to her lips. “Alright,” she said before taking a sip.

“Good evening ladies.”

When she heard the voice, Claire’s heart skipped a beat and she choked on her drink.

“Alex Malcolm!” Louise exclaimed, pretending to be surprised to see him. Turning around, Claire’s heart almost jumped out of her chest at the sight of him “Please, sit. We are so happy to see you!” Alex smiled shyly and sat down after glancing at Claire who was still coughing. “So? How have you been doing?”

“Quite alright, but I’m happy to be back.”

“Oh? You’re being transferred to France?”

“Actually, I’ve been in France for a few months,” he said, unable to look away from Claire for a long time. “But now I’m going to Caen.”

“So you’re the new surgeon! That’s wonderful! Right, Claire?”

Forcing a smile, Claire finally looked up and nodded. “Right,” she said in a low voice. 

She remembered Alex looked good, but now he was dashing. She didn’t know if it was perhaps the fact that she hadn’t seen him in a long time or simply that he had changed in the most beautiful way. His hair was longer now. Curlier, but as red as ever. Surprisingly, his face looked more relaxed than the last time she’d seen him. He seemed skinnier, as if he hadn’t been eating much recently or had been feeling stressed. His mouth was curled up in a shy smile and she wanted nothing more than to kiss him.

“I have to go over there, so I’ll leave you guys alone,” Louise said, getting up and winking at Claire before walking away.

Claire and Alex stayed silent for a moment. There were so many things she terribly want to ask him, to tell him, but nothing came to her mind. Instead, she studied his face.

“Have you received my letter?” He asked, surprising her.

“Yes. And I wrote back, but the letter was sent back to me. They said they didn’t know where you were, so I thought…”

“I had disappeared?”

She shrugged, looking away. “Where were you?” 

“Probably leaving Anzio and being sent back to France. Honestly, I lost track a wee bit. So? Did you continue surgeries?”

“Actually, yes. I am a Senior nurse, now.” She started to tell him everything about the last year and a half. The studies to do more surgeries, Geillis’ death.

“Aye, I’ve been told,” he said, a shadow crossing his face. “I’m sorry for yer loss. I ken ye were close.”

“We were,” Claire smiled sadly. “And what about you? What happened to you during all those months?”

“Weel… I invaded Sicily with the Americans, then I was sent to the Anzio Beachhead. It was terrible, Claire,” he shook his head, “soldiers felt more secure on the front lines than in the hospital. There were multiple bombings during just a few days. Then I was sent back to Amiens… I thought I would see ye again, but I heard ye’d been transferred. I didn’t stay there long, I was called to replace the surgeon who’s been shot in the hand.”

“Doctor Hamilton, yes. Poor guy,” she said, feeling stupid. 

“Aye, but I’m glad to see ye. I think yer friend planned this wi’ my friend. Ye remember Murtagh? The technician? He followed me everywhere since I left Amiens the first time. I think he and Louise wanted us to meet.”

Claire felt her cheeks turn red. “Yes, it wasn’t very subtle.”

He laughed, shaking his head. She couldn’t help but smile at the beautiful sound. She now remembered how happy it made her when he laughed. “No, not very subtle, but I’m verra glad to see ye.” 

He held her gaze and she felt her heart start to hammer in her chest. “Would ye like to dance wi’ me?” he asked.

She smiled shyly. “I don’t really know how to dance.”

“Me neither,” he said, winking. Or at least, trying to, but failing considerably. She chuckled and took the hand he was offering her.

They made their way to the dance floor just as low music started playing. 

Alex put his arms around her and she melted against him, resting her head on his chest. He was warm, heat radiating from him. She closed her eyes, wishing this moment would never stop.

Even though she had been hoping to see him again, she never thought he would simply appear out of nowhere, as the date Louise had been planning for her or as the new surgeon on their team. 

She couldn’t believe he was back after months spent wishing he would eventually come back, after sleepless nights thinking about his fate in the most dangerous theater of war of the time, and regretting not telling him goodbye. Now there he was, in her arms, trying to dance to the sound of the music. 

“I’m glad you’re back,” she whispered.

“Me too,” he said, his breath tickling the skin of her neck. “I’m happy to see ye again. Ye look great.”

“You too,” she smiled. 

They danced until they couldn’t feel their feet. Unable to let go of the other, they kept their hands linked all night long. Alex couldn’t look away from her, even if he tried. He had missed her hair, the curls bouncing around her head as she danced. She never wore her hair loose on the camp. 

When it was time to part ways for the night, he kissed her cheek. “I had a great time tonight,” he smiled at her. They were standing outside the dance hall in the pouring rain. 

“Me too.”

He held her gaze. “Well, good night to ye, then.” He started to walk away when Claire called after him.

“Alex!”

He turned around. 

“See you soon, soldier.”

He smiled softly and nodded, before turning to walk to his hotel. 

Louise joined Claire not long after and they made their way back to Madame Hildegarde’s place. “You…” Claire said, trying to sound threatening, but ended up bursting into laughter. 

“I told you it would give you some joy. And it did, uh?”

“Yes, thank you,” Claire smiled sheepishly. “For how long have you known? That Alex was being transferred to Caen?”

“Like two days ago,” she grinned. “When I heard one of the sergeants talk to another, I couldn’t control my joy. I wanted to run to your tent and jump and dance with you, but I decided to keep it a secret. I mean, we never know. Imagine I had told you he was coming and something happened before he arrived in Caen? But now you are happy and I am glad,” she smiled, taking Claire’s arm. “You deserve this. You deserve all the love in the world Claire. All the people you cared for died or left you. You worked so hard you entire life, concentrating on learning nursing and working long shifts. And that was just before the war. While all nurses try to have fun when we can, you always stay calm and quiet. If you have a chance at love, a second chance, I want you to take it.”

“I don’t know what I would do without you,” Claire said, grateful for the day Louise decided to go talk to her. 

“Me neither,” the French woman winked. “I don’t know what you would do without me.”

They arrived very late -or early- to Madame Hildegarde’s house. They took off their makeup and put on their clean pyjamas. Louise fell asleep before her head even hit the pillow. She was snoring softly, turning around and taking all the covers. But Claire couldn’t care less.

She was looking at the ceiling and smiling like a kid. She didn’t understand the way she was feeling. Her heart was feeling both light and heavy at the same time, but not heavy like it had been during the past months. She thought it was about to burst, overwhelmed by emotions she never thought she would live to feel again. For the first time in a very long time, she was happy.

Alex never left her mind. She could only think about his smile and the way he had held her during the night, the feeling of having his strong arms wrapped around her. She wished he was there in her bed, holding her until she fell asleep. 

She didn’t feel only happiness, but hope. For months, she had thought that hoping to see him come back would only bring more deception, but now, she felt like it was the only thing keeping her alive.

As much as she loved her life back in New York, there wasn’t much other than work and the long shifts at the hospital. Just like now. But now, after seeing him again and seeing the love in his eyes, she knew that she had something to look forward to when the war would end. She would not be coming back to an empty apartment and a tiring job, but she could look forward to a life with him. Shared dinners around the table, long talk in the dark of their bedroom after lazy love making. She could see it all in her head. 

He could start working at her hospital and they could work together, do surgeries together. She knew he could value her and respect her more than some of her colleagues. 

After months thinking perhaps she would never know happiness, after months thinking all was lost, she was looking forward to a future that included him. 

When I go back in Caen, she told herself, I’ll speak to him and tell him how I feel. We don’t have time to waste.


	6. A Quiet Night

In just a few days, Alex forgot all about the last terrible months he’d just spent in Italy. Now that he was back in France, back with Claire, he felt like he was where he belonged. He wasn’t afraid to die, at least, not as much as when he was on the Anzio beachhead. 

If the surgeries were too much, if the horror he saw when patients arrived with new casualties were too much, he would just look up at her and feel better. 

Claire was now more experienced in the OR and he could see she acted not only intuitively, but also confidently. Alex loved to work with her, they made a pretty good team. 

The first time they operated together, it was him who was telling her exactly what to do, teaching her the way to work the OR. Now, he found himself learning from her every single day. 

She was not only extraordinary in the OR, but everywhere she went, people and injured soldiers seemed calmed by her presence. She was always smiling, talking to them softly and trying to make them feel better. He often heard wounded men ask her if the women back in America or in England would still care for them, even if they came back with a missing arm or leg. 

“Of course,” Alex heard her whisper to one of the soldiers, one afternoon after a long surgery. Even if she was exhausted and famished, she was smiling and staying strong for the injured. 

He looked over at her from his spot by a patient and watched as she changed the soldier’s bandage around the head. Her hair was tied up and she had a green turban around her head. 

“Of course, they will want you back, any way they can have you. What matters is that you are alive and well. You don’t worry about that,” she smiled at the patient encouragingly, making Alex’s stomach turn into knots. She looked up from the patient and met his gaze. Claire smiled at him, and he smiled back before looking down at the pad in his hand. He was pretending to read the notes on the patient’s condition, but he was just hiding the crimson colour of his cheeks. 

Every day, when he talked with her or simply looked at her, he would feel this way over and over again.

Later in the afternoon, she was sitting by a fire, trying to heat her hands up. It was mid October and the temperature was going down with each passing day. 

Alex stopped in his tracks when he saw her. He looked at her, absentmindedly smiling, and went to sit next to her after taking a deep breath.

“Cold day,” he said.

She looked up at him and smiled. “Winter is slowly coming,” she answered, watching him as he sat rather close to her. She wasn’t feeling cold anymore.

“You did well in the OR today. Really,” he held her gaze and smiled shyly, “You’d be an amazing surgeon.”

She chuckled and rolled her eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Women don’t become surgeons. At least not in New York.”

“They should. You have more talent and instinct than any male surgeon I know. With a little more practise and a few classes at University… You’d be even better. Have you ever thought about it?”

“Honestly, never,” she said, looking up from her freezing feet to him. “But if this war ever ends… I might consider it.”

They stayed a moment in silence, looking at the flames dancing in front of them. “Everybody says the war will end before Christmas,” Claire said, her voice low. “What do you think about it?”

He shrugged, taking a cigarette from his pocket and offering it to her. She put it between her lips and he lit it, before lighting one for himself. “I dinna really ken. I don’t want to disappoint ye, but I think the war is far from over.” She didn’t say anything, but he could feel she was sad to hear him say it. “But I might be wrong. I do hope the war ends before Christmas,” he added before taking a puff. “Have ye ever spent Christmas in the Scottish Highlands?”

“No…” she smirked.

“It’s magical, really. A thin layer of snow covers the grass… Frozen Lochs and strong wind, carrying the snow around. It’s really beautiful. You should come one day. It is worth the travel.”

“I would love to,” she smiled at him. He held her gaze before shyly looking down at his feet. 

“I dinna think about this much, or at least I try to, but I really canna wait for the war to be over.”

“Me too,” she sighed. “What will you do? Once the war is over?” she asked him.

He smiled and ran a hand through his red curls. “Well… I will probably go to Edinburgh and work there, I guess. Unless something changes my mind,” he looked up at her with a playful look.

“Oh, I see,” she smirked.

“And you?”

“I’ll go back to New York. Go back to taking baths and reading in the comfort of my bed at night. I haven’t read in....” she thought, letting air out of her lungs, “well since I joined the army. I miss it.”

“You dinna have a book wi’ ye?”

“I used to have one but it was destroyed and I never had time to read it anyway. I was either too tired or too busy.”

“It just wasn’t the right book.”

“Maybe.”

***

When Louise asked Claire to come over with her to the dining tent, the last thing the british woman was expecting to find waiting for her was a private little birthday party.

“Surprise!” The ten people in the tent exclaimed. Surprised, Claire’s mouth curled up when she realized what was going on. The nurses in her tent, Jordie, a few other technicians, nurses and Alex were standing by a table. Jean, her friend, was holding a cake and brought it in front of Claire. 

“Blow out the candles!” she smiled.

Grinning from ear to ear, Claire looked around at the people in the room. She saw Louise winking at her, the other guests smiling cheerfully and Alex, looking at her with the softest blue eyes and a kind smile. She made a wish and blew out the candle.

It was an uneventful evening. No casualties arrived and the other shift was working while they were celebrating Claire’s birthday in the tent. It was a lovely evening and for a moment, they could almost forget about the reality of the war. It was good for everybody.

The cook had prepared a special cake for Claire and even if it wasn’t the most tasteful she’d had in her life — they were going with what they had — it was nice that for the first time in a very long time, she was celebrating her birthday.

For the past years, on every October 20th, Claire would go to work and stop by a bookstore on her way home at night. She would buy a book and then take a long bath with a martini, dress up in flannel pyjamas, cook a nice meal while listening to a jazzy record. She would eat while sitting by her window, watching the nightfall on Manhattan. Then, she would sit in her bed and read the book.

Her birthdays weren’t synonyms of sadness and sorrow anymore. It had taken a few years before she made peace with the fact that she would spend a few birthdays on her own. She didn’t mind much anymore. Of course, she felt alone, but she never really felt lonely. 

Even so, she was more than happy that someone had remembered and thought her birthday was important enough to celebrate. She was also happy that it brought joy to everybody on the field hospital. The cook had made enough cake to fill the bellies of every personnel member and the injured soldiers who could manage a piece of cake.

It was a perfect evening. Alex was sitting a few seats away from her, but she could feel his eyes on her all night long. Every time she looked up and met his gaze, he would smile softly, making her heart hammer in her chest. He was driving her crazy, making her feel dizzy and wonderful. Beautiful. 

While all her friends were talking, she thought about what he’d told her just a few days before. She had never thought about doing surgeries before the war. After being forced into the OR, she realized that she really loved to stand by a surgical table. She felt at ease, as if she was standing right where she belonged.

In her heart, Claire always knew that she wanted something more, something bigger. Maybe something daring or unusual. She had always been like that since she was a child. Maybe that was it. Alex believed in her, he believed she could do it. He even encouraged her and that was all she needed to be sure that should the war ever end, she was going to join a medical school. Whether in New York, Edinburgh or Paris, she didn’t care. That and a life with him was all she dared to hope for. 

Slowly, technicians were starting to retire to their tents, soon followed by nurses. Claire found herself alone with Louise and Alex, drinking hot chocolate around a table. They weren’t talking, simply enjoying the silence of the night. The bombs exploding seemed to be too far away to trouble them.

“I’m exhausted. I think I will go to sleep,” Louise smiled, getting up. She kissed Claire on the cheek.

“Thank you again, Loulou, for the party. I’ll… I’ll never thank you enough.”

“It was my pleasure, chérie,” she smiled and patted her shoulder. “Good night, Alex. Thank you for the help.”

“It was the least I could do,” he smiled sincerely and they both watched Louise walk out of the tent. They were now alone.

“Are you verra tired?” he asked.

She smiled, shrugging. “Honestly, I’m exhausted,” she chuckled. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep just now.”

“Yeah, me neither,” he smiled back and surprised her by taking her hand on the table. She looked up at him and met his soft blue eyes staring at her. 

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. 

His thumb started to draw small circles on her hands, raising goosebumps on her body and making it difficult for her to breathe normally.

“You had a great time, tonight?” he asked her.

She nodded, never looking away from his eyes.

“I have a wee gift for ye,” he finally said, after a moment of silence. “It’s no’ much, really, but… It’s all I have…” he handed her a little present wrapped in newspaper. “Sorry for the presentation,” he said, his cheeks turning pink. 

A grin broke on her face. “Thank you, wow.” She was speechless. Nobody had given her anything — and she wasn’t expecting them to. They had nothing to give, after all. 

“Open it before ye say something,” he smiled. 

She unwrapped the gift and discovered that it was a book. And Then There Were None. She swallowed with difficulty, feeling her eyes veil with tears.

“Alex, I-” she looked up at him. 

He smiled at her, taking hold of her hand once more. “I’ve been carrying this book since I first joined the army. My aunt gave it to me before I enrolled.”

“But… You don’t want to keep it?”

“Nay… I must have read it ten times by now. It’s the only book I’ve read since the war started. Or at least, the only book I finished. Nay. It’s yours now. Have ye ever read it?”

“No, I don’t think so. Thank you so much,” she got up and he took her in his arms. She didn’t know how long she held him, but she hoped this moment would never stop. She could feel his heart beat in his chest, matching the fast rhythm of her own. 

Finally, he pulled away and looked deep into her eyes. His face was only inches from hers and she wanted nothing more than kiss his lips. He bowed his head down and put his lips on her cheek. His hands were resting on her neck, warming up her entire body, while her arms were still around his waist. She closed her eyes when he kissed her. It was rather a long kiss and when he looked at her, he smiled. “Happy birthday, Claire.”

December 1992

“That’s the book?” Erin asked, looking at a copy of And Then There Were None from her grandmother’s library.

“Yes,” Claire whispered. “I could never get rid of it,” she smiled sadly. “There, bring it to me, please.”

Erin walked to her and sat on her seat, putting the book down in front of Claire. She put a shaky hand on the cover, closing her eyes. Nobody said anything and let her relive that night of October 20th 1944. “It was my 26th birthday. Alex was older than me. Two years older. But he looked so young.” She opened her eyes and looked at every one of the faces staring back at her.

Andrew was as fascinated by her story as Erin was. Brianna, on the other hand, was carefully listening, clearly not getting too emotional about it. 

Claire looked down at the book and opened it. “Look,” she told Erin.

“Alexander Malcolm,” she read and looked up at her grandmother with a smile only a twelve-year-old passionate little girl can make. 

Claire smiled back at her before closing the book. She took one more sip of water and took a deep breath. She knew the hardest part of her story was coming. The most painful, yet the most amazing part of it. The part she remembered the most when she missed him. When she thought she couldn’t bear that she had lost him. 

“I never understood why he didn’t kiss me that night,” she smiled, looking in the void in front of her. “Really. There was a certain rule about dating coworkers. Everybody did it in secret, though. But that night, in the tent… We were truly alone. He could have kissed me without anybody knowing about it,” she chuckled. “I always thought I should have kissed him, if he was too scared to kiss me first. For the following weeks after my birthday, I often wondered and regretted not doing it. It was as if we were so close to one another, closer than ever, but at the same time, so far. But this kiss was also something else. A promise, or something like that.”

She kept silent, thinking about the timeline of the events. She was surprised she could remember it all so clearly at her age.

“There was a bombing a few weeks after. In mid november. A plane missed its target and hit us. That day I ran for my dear life and jumped into the foxhole. I was buried in my foxhole, buried under the tent and dirt and soil. I was crouching with my hands on my ears. I couldn’t hear anything going on up there, so I thought they were still dropping bombs. I could only think about Geillis who had been killed during a similar bombing and I was scared to get out and find that Louise or Alex or any of my friends had perished.”

“They got me out a few hours later. I had fallen asleep and was still crouching when they dug me out. Actually, it was him who lifted me out of the foxhole, swearing at the sight of me covered with dirt. When I saw how scared he looked, I realized I was very lucky to be alive. You see, the bomb had fallen right next to my tent… Alex brought me to care for me, even if I told him I was alright. My head was spinning, my ears buzzing and I could hardly breathe because of the dirt, but I was fine. He didn’t seem very convinced, though,” she smiled at the memory of his annoyed face every time she protested against medical attention. “I pretended to be annoyed as well, but you know… I liked the attention he was giving me,” Claire chuckled.

“What happened then?” Brianna asked, speaking for the first time in hours. Her voice was hoarse and didn’t sound like herself at all.

“Then, Alex sent me off to sleep in his bed while he was going to take care of the new casualties. I wanted to go in the OR with him, but he said I was exhausted and should rest. I didn’t argue for very long. I could hardly keep my eyes open. So I went and slept in his camp bed. It wasn’t more comfortable than mine, but it smelled like him. I fell asleep very fast.”

“The morning after, I woke up, feeling much better than the previous night. When I got up, I met him on his way to the tent and he went to sleep in his own bed. I went to eat breakfast with Louise who’d been scared to death, after looking for me during hours after the bombing. She didn’t say anything, but I knew she was thinking about what had happened to Geillis, because I was thinking about it too. Then, I went to the post surgery tent and I met a soldier. He was seriously wounded on the head. He was asleep when I went to see him, but not the day after. He asked me for water and I gave some to him. He looked deep into my eyes and said thank you without even speaking a word. At that moment, my heart warmed up and I remembered what I was doing there. We bonded easily. He was very charming, always making jokes, trying to make me and the other nurses laugh. He was rather handsome. He stayed with us for a few weeks before he was sent to an evacuation hospital. During those two weeks, we became friends. I was sad to see him go, but patients never stayed long with us.”

“Do you know what happened to him?” Erin asked.

“That, I do,” Claire chuckled awkwardly. “I married him.”


	7. Another Wolrd

December 1992

“The wounded soldier is grandpa? I mean… Grandpa John?”

Claire nodded.

“I thought you married in 45,” Brianna said, confused.

“Yes… I married him when the war ended. You see… We were both very heartbroken. He was in love with someone else during the war. That person was killed not long after he left for the 44th Evacuation Hospital.”

Claire watched her daughter as she told her about her father’s lost love. She felt bad for her, she really did. It was a lot to take in. But the truth had to come out.

“You didn’t see him until the end of the war, then?” Erin asked.

Shaking her head, Claire looked down at her hands. “Anyway, that’s not the next part of the story.”

“What happened after grandpa left?”

“We nurses and a number of hospital staff were allowed forty-eight-hour passes, plus travel time to visit Paris. It was the beginning of December and the rumours — or hopes — that the war would end before Christmas were all dead by then.”

Claire’s cheeks turned pink when she thought about what she was going to tell about those nights in Paris.

“We arrived rather late the first day. Louise went on a date. Everybody, but me, was going on a date. Alex was not there… He had to go with other surgeons and would arrive only the night after. So I stayed in my room at the Normandy Hotel. It was a luxury, after months spent sleeping on bed camps and washing our hair with rain water,” Claire smiled at the memory. “You know, when you see yourself in a mirror for the first time in so long… It’s quite weird, actually. For a moment, I didn’t recognize myself and thought ‘That’s me?’ I had aged a lot and had some grey hair. 

That night, I took two baths and washed my hair with aloe shampoo. I painted my nails and listened to some music. I spent the evening in a queen size bed in warm sheets. It was blissful. Even if I wished Alex didn’t have to go to this meeting so we could spend the night together,” she blushed.

“The following day, I asked the concierge for the best restaurant in town and he sent me to a little bakery down the street. I talked with the owners and they told me about interesting places to visit. I went to la tour Eiffel and walked by la Seine. Louise didn’t come with me, she was busy with her date from the previous night,” she chuckled. “When the sun set, I walked back to the hotel and met Alex in the hallway.”

December 1944

“Claire,” he said, surprised to see her when he turned around from reception. He smiled at the sight of her wearing a blue winter coat and a beret. 

“Soldier,” she smiled back.

“Do you… have plans for tonight?” he asked her.

“Nothing, but taking a bath and staying in bed all night,” she smirked.

“Sounds good. Are you hungry? I’ve been told the food from the hotel’s restaurant is quite good. It would be nice to share dinner with you.”

“I would love to. At 7 p.m.? It will give us the chance to clean up a bit.”

“7 p.m. it is, then.” 

Claire was feeling a mixture of anxiety and excitement about this date. She washed and put on a burgundy dress she had bought with Louise in case they decided to go out on a date. She decided to let her hair down, after all, on the field hospital it was always in a bun or in a turban. She put some makeup on and after a final look in the mirror, she took a deep breath and left the room.

Alex was already waiting for her at the dinner table. She stopped in her tracks, her breath catching in her throat at the sight of him. He was more handsome than ever, dressed in a formal uniform and his hair freshly washed. When he saw her, his face lit up and he rose, helping her sit in her chair.

“You look beautiful,” he told her, sitting back in front of her.

“So do you,” she smiled. She held his gaze for a moment before shyly looking down at the menu. Alex felt his cheeks turn red. They both felt the tension between them.

“Did you look at the menu?”

“Aye, a bit.”

Famished, Claire was open to any food, so she decided to go with the first thing on the menu. They both ordered ratatouille. When the waiter left, they stayed in an awkward silence, looking around at the few tables occupied in the restaurant. 

“How was it last night? Did you go out with the nurses?” Alex asked, sipping his wine.

“No. I stayed in my room and relaxed.”

“And do you have plans for tomorrow?”

“Probably visiting Paris again, I don’t really know. And you?” It was her turn to drink some wine.

“I don’t really know either.”

She held his gaze and the corner of her lips curled up. She felt her cheeks turn pink under his intense stare. 

They were interrupted by the waiter, bringing their meal. They ate in a shy silence. It was clear what was in both their minds. Every time Claire thought about it, her heart would start beating faster and her breath cut short.

As soon as they were finished, she took a deep breath and looked up at him. “Do you want to come to my room?”

He held her gaze and smiled shyly. “Yes,” he said.

Alex paid for their meal and they walked out of the restaurant, slowly making their way to Claire’s room. She took the key out of her purse and unlocked the door, feeling Alex’s eyes on the back of her neck the entire time.

It was dark in the room. She opened the lamp by the bed and threw her purse on one of the couches. She turned around in the middle of the room and shyly crossed her arms on her chest. He was standing a few feet from her, his hands in his pockets. “Well,” she chuckled softly and looked up at him. His eyes were dark with lust and he was looking at her like he had never before. She swallowed, the need of him more urgent than ever. “Come here,” she whispered.

He walked to her and stopped right in front of her. They stared lovingly at each other until she grabbed his cheeks and climbed on her tiptoes, kissing him. He kissed her back, closing his arms around her waist and pulling her against him. She melted into him and deepened the kiss, running her tongue across his lower lip. He moaned into her mouth and pulled her closer against him. She could feel every inch of his body, yet she wanted him closer. 

Claire pulled away, breathless, and he lifted her chin to look at her. His eyes were filled with love and lust and his lips were swollen after their passionate kiss. Never breaking eye contact, she trailed her hands up his chest and started unbuttoning his shirt. He looked at her with a glint in his eyes, the corner of his mouth curling up. 

When she reached his belt, he tensed and his breath caught in his throat when she opened his pants and freed his erection. She smiled at him, placing a small kiss on his mouth. 

“Well,” he whispered against her lips when she pushed his pants down on the floor. “My turn.” His voice was hoarse when he spoke.

She smirked at him and turned around. He put both his hands on her shoulders and she felt a shiver run down her spine at his touch. He gently unzipped the dress and Claire turned back to face him. He pushed the dress down and it fell on the floor. When he saw that she was wearing no underwear, he grinned. “You had it all planned, didn’t you?”

“Obviously,” she smiled, kissing him again.

When she pulled back, he looked from her breasts up to her eyes and she nodded. His hands cupped her breasts, a breath leaving his parted lips as he fondled them. Claire closed her eyes and melted into his touch. He bent to kiss her and lifted her in his arms. She chuckled, surprised, as he guided them to the bed. 

They fell on the mattress and Alex rolled on top of her. He kissed her neck, trailing kisses and biting the skin of her chest. She threw her head back on the pillow, her back arching under his touch, and grabbed his hair, running her long fingers in the red curls.

Their touch became more urgent. “Alex,” she whispered, lifting her head so he was looking at her.

He didn’t say anything but she saw the lust in his eyes. He placed himself between her legs and, never looking away from her eyes, he slowly entered her, making both of them moan. He started rolling his hips, looking at her face as he moved inside of her. 

Claire closed her eyes, surrendering to the feeling. It had been so long, she had almost forgotten what it was like. Alex bent to kiss her, capturing her moans in his mouth. When she opened her eyes again, she saw that he was looking at her like nobody had before. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. “Claire,” he moaned when she started to move her hips along with his and pulled him closer to her with her legs wrapped around him. “Oh, God.”

“Alex,” she breathed and the gripping of his hair tightened when he started to move faster. It was almost painful, but it made a shiver run down his spine. He didn’t say anything about it.  
After, Alex stayed inside of her, his head buried in her neck until their breathing went back to normal.

He would have stayed inside of her forever, but finally rolled out of her and fell on his side next to her. When she looked up at him, he felt his heart beam in his chest. She was beautiful, her cheeks pink and a satisfied smile on her face.

He smiled back at her and she turned on her side to place a small kiss on his mouth, a soft moan escaped his lips. 

They didn’t say anything for a moment. She laid her head on his chest and they eventually fell asleep in each other’s arms.

***

“It’s not so bad,” Alex remarked, running his thumb on the biting mark on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t know I..” he blushed, feeling ashamed of bruising her.

“Me neither,” she chuckled and turned her head to kiss him on the lips.

They were sitting in the bath in Claire’s hotel room. She was lying against his chest, feeling marvelous every time he placed a kiss on her neck and shoulders.

“I don’t remember when it happened. Was it the first time or…”

She grinned, letting her head rest on his shoulder. “Does it matter?”

“Nay, I just didna think I get so carried away that I have black out moments.”

They both chuckled and she turned around, sitting in front of him in the bath. Their smiled slowly disappeared from their face when Claire bent to kiss him. They kissed deeply, a small moan escaping her lips.

“Ye have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that,” he whispered.

“Let me guess… Since October ‘42?”

“It was September. We met in September,” he smiled at her and kissed her again. 

“Alex,” Claire said very seriously. She sat back and crossed her arms around her legs. “When the war ends… I want to marry you.”

His blue eyes lit up and a broad smile appeared on his face. “Are ye proposing to me?” 

“I am and you can’t say no,” she grinned. 

“Well, then,” he smirked, bowing his head closer to hers, “it’s a yes.”

They kissed once again, their tongues dancing together. 

“We could move to Scotland, if you want.”

“I’ll go wherever you want to go,” he smiled.

“Scotland sounds good. I heard…” she hesitated, “never mind.”

“What? Tell me,” he encouraged her.

“I heard there are pretty good medical schools there,” she bit her lower lip, feeling her cheeks turn red. She looked up at him and saw a broad smile on his face.

“Ye do want to go to medical school, then? But, Claire, that’s wonderful!” he exclaimed, kissing her. She laughed, kissing him back. 

“You know, I never thought I wanted to become a surgeon, but since I operated with you that first time… It’s like I can’t see myself doing anything else, but this.”

He smiled proudly and wrapped his arms around her. “I canna see ye doing anything else, either. You’re gifted, Claire. I know ye’ll be an amazing surgeon. Ye’ll be better than me.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to be better than you. I want to work with you,” she smiled. “We could work at the same hospital, live in a small flat in the city. We would be happy.”

“Aye, that sounds like a perfect plan.”

***

Later that night, they were lying in bed, legs tangled together and Alex’s head resting on her chest while she gently twisted his hair around her fingers, White Christmas playing in the background.

“We willna marry until the end of the war,” Alex eventually whispered.

“Well, it’s better to wait after.”

He got up, still naked, and walked to his pants on the floor. Claire admired the view. “Maybe we canna get officially married now, but…” he came back with a ring in hand. It was a large silver ring with a red gemstone on it. “My father’s ring,” he smiled at her before sliding it on her finger. It was too big and fell on the bed. 

“Wait,” Claire got up and walked to her luggage and took out a chain that had belonged to her mother. She slid the ring on the chain and tied it behind her neck.

“Keep it until we marry,” Alex smiled and took her hand to kiss her knuckles. “Then, once ye have a real wedding ring, give it to our bairn.” Claire’s face lit up at the mention of children.

After making love once again, they laid down in bed and read a book that was taking dust in the library: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

December 1992

There was a heavy silence in the room.

Both Andrew’s and Brianna’s cheeks were pink but not for the same reason. Claire could feel her daughter was angry or finding it scandalous that she had had an affair with a man that wasn’t her father. 

She knew now was the time to tell the truth she’d been hiding for almost fifty years.

“Brianna, I didn’t marry John in 1945. We married in 1947, the year I met him after the war.”

She didn’t say anything, but Claire saw realization all over her face. Brianna was born on September 1945. Nine months after Claire’s night with Alex in the Normandy Hotel. “He was your real father.” 

“No,” Brianna whispered and got up. “You can’t say that. Not when Daddy’s dead.”

“Darling-”

“Don’t! I don’t want to hear anything more about this story,” She said and slammed the door on her way out.

Andrew saw Brianna outside the building, walking in a circle. “Brianna…” he said.

“Don’t take my mother’s side or I swear I’ll-”

“There are no side. Look at me,” he said, standing in front of her. She lifted her head and let out a sigh. 

“I don’t…” her eyes veiled with tears. “I’m not sure I can hear this, Andrew,” she whispered.

“Do you believe her?”

“Of course I do, that’s why I’m upset. Didn’t you see the picture? This Alex guy… I look exactly like him.”

He held her in his arms while she cried. “You always said you were never able to really connect with you mother. You often felt like she lived in another world. You told me that.” 

Brianna nodded.

“Well, this is her world and she’s opening the door for you. Maybe this is your last chance to bond with her.”

They both knew Claire’s health was starting to fail her and that she was living on borrowed time. 

“Maybe she needs… I don’t know. Redemption?”

“You really want to hear her story, don’t you?”

“Aye,” he said honestly. “I feel like for the first time in years I understand who Claire is. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Let’s go back inside and listen to her story. You won’t be letting John go just because you listen to your mother talk about your real father. Whatever happened between the two of them, it was John who raised you. And even if you are curious about this Alex, that will never change what you had with him.”

Brianna took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right.”

She kissed him and climbed the stairs to the building’s main door.

Erin and Claire were sitting in silence and they both looked up when they walked him. “Tell me more about him,” Brianna said. “I want to know about you and this Alex Malcolm.”


	8. Leave the Past Behind

December 1944

Claire and Alex spent their last day in Paris together. They only left the bed to go in the bath or order food from the hotel’s restaurant. They talked and kissed a lot, and they made love. 

Just when they decided to leave the room and walk a bit outside Paris, at four in the afternoon, it started to rain hard. Hand in hand, they ran in the empty street, while everybody outside took refuge in a pub or museum. They stopped in the middle of the street and kissed. They were happy and living in a dream they didn’t want to wake up from. 

Claire opened her eyes after the kiss and saw Alex staring at her with blue eyes filled with love. His red curls were soaked by the rain dripping on his face. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, his hands holding her tightly. 

She blushed and kissed him again. 

“Let’s go back inside. We don’t want to catch a cold.” He tried to wink at her and they ran back to the hotel, laughing. 

Claire wished this moment would never stop. The last thing she wanted to do was to go back to the army. She wanted to run away with him and hide. She wanted to buy a little cottage with Alex in the middle of the Highlands and not be bothered by anybody. She didn’t care about medical school anymore and their future at the hospital. Just them together, a little house and sheep would make her happy.

But she knew fine well it wasn’t possible. She just hoped the war would end soon.

They came back to their room, took off their clothes and jumped in the warmth of their bed. They cuddled and eventually fell asleep to the sound of the rain falling against the window.

“Rain is better than snow for the guys in the trenches,” Alex whispered, his hand in her hair.

“Yes. Oh, Alex, I don’t want to go back,” she cried.

He sat up and lifted her chin. “Me neither,” he smiled sadly. “But we canna leave like this, you know, Claire.”

She nodded, feeling her heart break. “I know. It’s just a stupid fantasy,” she sighed.

“Not stupid,” he kissed her. “This war canna go on forever.”

“Maybe it will. It does feel like forever, don’t you think? Maybe it will last one hundred years.”

He laid back and turned on his side to face her. “Maybe… If it does, well… we’ll be together for a hundred years more,” he shrugged. She smiled and shook her head. “Think about the life waiting for us,” he said, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles. “Hold on to this,” he smiled.

She held his gaze, getting lost in his blue eyes and nodded. He kissed her deeply and rolled on top of her. They made love one last time before packing their stuff and boarding to go back to the front. The dream was over.

February 1945

Claire didn’t need to open her eyes to know that she wasn’t on the field hospital. There was too much silence around her. Peaceful silence.

“Claire?” 

She opened her eyes and saw Alex smiling at her. She blinked and her vision became clear.

She was lying in a strange bed. In front of her was a big bay window and endless green lands. Looking around, she realized she was in the bedroom of what seemed to be a cottage. “Where are we?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

“Home,” Alex smiled at her and put his hand on hers. “You fell and hit your head. Are you okay?” he looked worried.

She nodded, not understanding what was going on.

“Claire… Do you know what day it is?”

She shook her head.

“The war is over,” he smiled and kissed her knuckles. 

“Really?”

“Aye.”

Her vision started to blur once again, her head spinning around.

“Claire?” Alex asked. “Claire?”

She opened her eyes and saw a middle aged woman staring at her with worried eyes. She immediately recognized where she was. A general hospital.

“Where am I?” she asked the nurse.

“London,” the woman smiled at her.

“London…” Claire started panicking. “What happened? Where’s everybody? Where’s Alex?”

“Ye need to calm down, first. The field hospital where you work was bombed. You and a few other nurses were injured.”

“Any dead?”

“No,” the woman held her gaze. 

“I need to make a phone call,” Claire said. She didn’t understand what was going on. The last thing she remembered was smoking a cigarette with Alex by a fire and a young photographer coming to take their picture. 

“I’m afraid it’s impossible for now,” she smiled sadly. 

She let the woman, whose name was nurse Graham, check on her and after she left, Claire started weeping. She was scared to death, thinking about what had happened to her friends and to Alex. 

She didn’t sleep at night, her eyes wide opened, looking around in the dark and listening to the sound of the moaning patients. She felt paralyzed with fear, but wanted nothing more than to run out of this place.

Her back was severely injured and her head was throbbing. She cried all night long because of the pain and the fear of losing him.

It went on like this for a few days until Claire woke up to find Alex sitting beside her. At first, she thought she was dreaming, but when she saw he was holding her hand and she felt the warmth of his skin, she knew he was real.

“Alex!” she exclaimed.

He stopped her from moving. “Easy, easy. You’re injured.”

“What are you doing here?” She asked, tears of happiness streaming down on her cheeks. 

“I came to see you.”

He was dressed in a uniform and she noticed he looked very tired. “How are you?”

“I should be asking you this question,” he smiled faintly. 

She grabbed his shirt and brought him down to kiss him. He kissed her back, his hands cupping her face. “I was so scared,” she whispered, her nose resting against his. “I thought you were dead.”

“No, I am alive. You scared me. Christ, when I saw you lying there, I thought you were dead.”

“Am I going to walk again?” she asked.

“Aye. The doctor said you should be fine in a few weeks, but ye need to rest.”

She was sobbing uncontrollably. He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumb. “Dinna fash, mo chridhe,” he kissed her nose. 

“I don’t remember what happened.”

“What’s the last thing ye remember?”

She told him and he listened, frowning. “Well, after that I went back to the OR and ye went wi’ Louise to the post operation tent and that’s when the bomb was dropped.”

“Louise… Is she alright?”

“She’s fine. A few bruises, but she’s strong. She was scared to death when she saw ye were lying unconscious. Anyway, when we saw the state ye were in, we sent ye back to England. Trust me when I say that I wanted to come wi’ ye, but… I couldn’t. There were injured to heal and we are not officially marrit, so…”

“I understand,” she said, putting her hands on his. “How did you manage to come?”

“I told the general everything,” Alex smiled shyly. “He wouldn’t give me permission until I told him so. But Claire, the war is about to end. The troops are making progress. In fact, we left Caen and they were moving to join other troops in Germany when I left. I think this war really is about to end. Soon, we’ll go home.”

“In Scotland,” she said, looking deep into his eyes.

He smiled and nodded. “Ye’re sure you don’t want to go back to New York?”

“Yes. We’re gonna buy a cottage.”

Alex chuckled. “Anything you want, love.” He kissed her again. 

The doctor arrived and Alex said he was going to get something to eat. “I’ll be right back,” he kissed her forehead and left. Claire watched him go and didn’t look at the doctor until he was out of sight. 

“Mrs Beauchamp?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“We’ve run some basic tests when you first arrived and we discovered something. Were you aware that you are pregnant?”

Claire felt her cheeks turn red and her heart stop in her chest. “I’m pregnant?”

“Yes. You’re two months pregnant. Have you noticed any changes in the past weeks? Nausea? Morning sickness? Fatigue or dizziness? Or food cravings?”

“Well, now that you mention it, I did, but I figured it was just fatigue from working long hours and the hard conditions of winter.” She couldn’t believe what the doctor was telling her. “Is the baby okay?” she suddenly panicked, realizing maybe the baby had been injured during the bombing.

“There was no sign indicating that maybe the baby was injured, but we’d like to run a few tests to be sure.” The doctor was so serious that it scared Claire something had happened to her baby. 

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning a specialist in obstetrics will be on call and he’ll take good care of you.”

She thanked him and waited until Alex came back, thinking whether she should tell him about the pregnancy. She wanted to share this wonderful news with him, but the doctor had scared her with the baby’s health. She didn’t want to tell him only to tell him the day after that their baby is sick or worse. 

Finally he came back with sandwiches and gave her one. She wasn’t hungry anymore and forced herself to eat. “Are you alright?” He asked her, noticing a change in her behaviour.

She nodded and forced a smile. “Just tired. Do you mind staying for the night? I know you probably want to sleep in a real bed, but I would really appreciate it if you stayed.” 

He took her hand and nodded. “I came here to be wi’ ye, Claire. Not to sleep at the hotel,” he tried to wink, but closed both eyes. She smiled, feeling a weight off her chest just for a moment.

After eating, Claire fell asleep, her hand in his. Alex watched her sleep, his heart heavy in his chest. He ran his free hand in her curls and prayed for her. As he watched her sleep, he studied her face, trying to remember every little detail. He didn’t know for how long they would be away from each other. A week or months? He made sure he would still remember her face, whenever he’d need her. 

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and his heart broke with too much love for her. He was thankful to God that she was alive, but he prayed that this bloody war would end so he could be by her side while she healed. He wanted nothing more than to be with her.

In just the days spent away from her, he was feeling like a shadow of himself. He found himself thinking about her and seeing her everywhere he looked. He wanted nothing more than to be with her and being seperated from her was killing him.

When Claire woke up in the night, she saw that Alex was sleeping next to her. She asked one of the nurses for paper and a pen and she wrote.

My dearest Alex,

I am sorry I did not tell you this in person, but I simply could not. The doctor told me I am pregnant. Two months pregnant, which means I have had a bun in the oven since our trip to Paris. 

I was beyond happy when the doctor told me this. I felt like a part of our future together was already with us. It made me see that our dreams of a life together are closer than we know. 

But my happiness did not last very long. The doctor said he wanted to run some tests to make sure the baby was fine after the bombing. He did not seem too alarmed, but there was something in the way he talked that scared me, that made me worried that perhaps our baby was not healthy. That is the reason why I am telling you this in a letter.

I am so sorry I am not strong enough to tell you in person. But do not worry, my love, our baby will be healthy, I just did not want to worry you with my own worries. 

Come back to me, soldier,

Claire

She put the letter in the pocket of his coat and laid back, still holding his hands. She knew he had to leave tomorrow and she didn’t want to spend one more minute sleeping, but appreciate their time together. They didn’t know when they would see each other again.

The morning after, Alex woke her up with a kiss on her cheek. “I have to go,” he whispered.

She nodded. 

“I’ll come back as soon as I can. Goodbye, Claire,” he kissed her one last time and looked at her before turning to leave. She held his hand until they had to let go. 

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Only tears.

December 1992

“A week after he went back, I received a letter telling he’d been killed on the front.” Her voice was drab and everybody knew she spoke like this when she didn’t want to be too emotional. 

There was a heavy silence in the room. Andrew was crying, holding his daughter in his arms. Brianna’s face was blank, and just like with her father, Claire couldn’t read any emotions. 

“He was traveling between two field hospitals when they were shot. I was told he died instantly. At least he wasn’t in any pain or fear.”

“How did you learn?” Erin asked her grandmother.

“I was in the hospital and nurse Graham came to tell me. We had become friends during the days I spent there. She was very good, patient and kind with me, unlike many of the other personnel members. She cried with me.”

Claire took the picture of her and Alex and looked at it. “This is probably the last picture of him.”

Brianna handed a tissue to her husband. He took it and wiped the tears from his eyes. He was trying not to cry, he knew it wasn’t easy for Claire, but he couldn’t help it.

“I spent the next weeks at the hospital, drowning in sorrow, when there was news that the war had ended. Everybody was celebrating. Everybody but me. I thought about all the plans we’d made and I thought if he were still alive, he’d be here and he would take me away from the hospital. But he wasn’t there. He was dead.”

“What happened next?” Erin asked.

“I healed and went back to New York. I worked at the hospital as a nurse until I couldn’t because of the pregnancy. Then I gave birth to you and I named you after his father. I figure he would want that,” she said, looking at Brianna. “I never knew if he’d read my letter.”

“You know, nurse Graham saw me mourning him. I was always talking to her about him, about the plans we had made. She listened until one day she told me that if I wanted to move on, I had to forget about him. Or at least, keep the memory of him in a secret place in my heart. So I moved on and build a life without him. It wasn’t the life I had planned, but it was a good life.”

May 1947

Claire was walking with Brianna in a stroller. It had been more than two years since Alex’s death. Brianna was almost two years old and she was the most beautiful baby. She looked just like her father. Maybe Claire didn’t have a picture of him, maybe he only existed in her memory, but now she had her little girl to remind her of him everyday. 

Alex had died, but Brianna was there so she could never forget about him. About her lost love. It had been painful at first, so painful that Claire could barely look at her baby without crying. But every time she smiled, every time her eyes shined with joy because she found her mother funny, Claire imagined it was Alex reaching out to her, somehow. 

Claire was living in the same apartment from before the war and working at the same job. Nothing had changed except her daughter and the sadness in her heart.

Two years after the end of the war, Claire was walking in the street when something caught her attention. It was a paper, in a newspaper stand. On the front page, the story of the first woman who joined medical school in Boston.

At that moment, Claire remembered when she was planning on joining medical school. A plan she had put behind her when she came back to New York pregnant and alone. She remembered Alex encouraging her and believing in her. She bought the newspaper.

She never found time to do it. With Brianna and with work, she never had free time. She was paying the neighbor's daughter to take care of her, but she always felt guilty, as if she wasn’t present in her daughter’s life. 

One night, Claire was coming home from work, when she decided to stop by at the restaurant to buy dinner.

She was waiting for her order when she heard a familiar voice calling after her. She turned around and saw private John Grey look at her with the most beautiful smile.

“Grey!” she exclaimed.

He hugged her tightly and for the first time in two years, she felt like she could breathe. To see a familiar face, a face from her past was doing more good than she thought it could.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him. “You look good!”

“Well, so do you. I moved here a few months ago. What about you?”

“I live here. I lived here even before the war.”

They chatted a bit, until her order was ready. She didn’t want to part from him. She wanted to talk to him, talk about the war. She remembered the first time she met him, how kind he was. “Would you like to come over to my place? We could share dinner. I’m sure my daughter is asleep by now.”

He accepted and walked home with her. Claire paid the nanny and went to kiss her daughter while Grey was preparing the table for dinner. They spent the night talking, but they were shy to talk about the war, even if they both wanted to. They didn’t know if it would hurt the other.

At some point, Brianna started crying and Claire went to her room and came back with her in her arms.

As soon as Grey laid eyes on her, he knew. “You’re not married?”

Claire shook her head. 

“And your daughter…”

“Yes, she is,” Claire nodded. She is Alex’s daughter.

“I heard about him. About what happened to him. I am very sorry.”

“You know what it’s like to lose someone you love,” she caressed her daughter’s hair and looked up at him.

“I do,” he said sadly. “I still think about him. Every day.”

“What was his name?” Claire asked. John looked up at her, his eyes filled with tears. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“No, I do. I never talked about him with anyone. It has to come out. His name was Oliver. Oliver Raley.”

They both talked for the first time about their lost love. Claire told John about her dream of becoming a surgeon and John told her he always wanted to have kids. After a few meetings, they decided to marry.

It was more a marriage out of convenience than a marriage out of love, but they were both happy — given the circumstances — about it. It allowed Claire to join medical school and to leave her daughter with John. He was taking good care of her and she knew her daughter would need a father figure. John was her best friend and she was happy that Brianna would grow with him. He even helped her study and was always supportive. 

But most importantly, he understood her pain and every night, they talked about it until John said they should leave the past behind, if they wanted to be able to move forward. Claire agreed, so they decided not to tell Brianna about Alex until she would be old enough to understand. But life happened and Claire never told her.

John and Claire never slept together until one night, after an emotional day. It felt wrong and they both said they shouldn’t do it again. They never fell in love with each other, and they never fell in love with nobody else. They stopped talking about the past to move forward, but they never stopped thinking about it.


	9. Ready to Go Home

December 1992 

Nobody talked after Claire ended her story. Anything they could say would be stupid and vain. So they waited for her to add something.

“Now you know there was a man named Alexander Malcolm and that he saved me in any way that a person can be saved. I wanted nothing more than a life with him. But I let it go and go on living without him. Because I knew that’s what he would want.”

Claire’s hands and her voice were shaking. “Alex loved you very much,” she told Brianna. “Even though he never met you, he loved you with all his heart, and he would have raised you, well if it wasn’t… if it wasn’t… well you know.”

Brianna swallowed and looked down at her linked hands. She wasn’t sure what to think about this story and this Alexander Malcolm, yet, but she knew she hated to see her mother like this. At the same time, her heart broke because she realized how painful life must have been for her. She couldn’t imagine something like that happening to her and Andrew. 

“I was angry for so long. I was angry at life, I was angry at God and I was even angry at him. But he gave me the most beautiful gift ever. You.”

***

The day after, Brianna and her family finally left and went back to Boston. They weren’t sure if they should leave Claire alone in that emotional state, but she convinced them to catch their train. 

When Claire closed the door, she was alone for the first time in what seemed like a very long time. She sat at her place by the table and looked at the picture and started crying.

He was so dashing. She remembered him quite well, even after all these years, but he was never this clear in her mind. His red hair, his beautiful blue eyes and the wrinkles around them when he smiled. 

She took the paper and put it against her heart. She closed her eyes and started to cry for him, for the first time in a very long time. The pain of the past fifty years came back to her, washing over her like a raging sea. Nurse Graham’s words echoed in her mind.

You have had an extraordinary adventure, Claire. Extraordinary. One that few people could even imagine. Treasure it. Keep it safe and secure, tucked away in some special place in your heart.

She was right. Not many people had the chance to know a love like this. Claire thought about what Alex had told her. It was better to love and lose. He was right and just like she had done a lot in the past fifty years, she believed it. 

She had made peace with his death a long time ago. But he still haunted her everyday of her life. You don’t forget a love like this one so easily. She found herself wishing he was there so she could speak to him.

Claire wiped her tears away with a tissue and went to sleep, bringing the picture with her. 

A few days after her family left, Claire received a letter from her granddaughter. She smiled and opened it, not expecting to find something that would change her life.

Dear Grandma,

I hope you are feeling better. I am writing to you to tell you that I have something that may interest you. I hesitated before sending it to you, but I think you will want to read it. I was in touch with the daughter of your friend Louise and she gave me this for you. Her mother had kept it all those years and gave it to her daughter before dying in 1962. Her daughter did like her mother asked her to and tried to find you. She cried of happiness when I told her who I was.

Please call me soon.

Love you,

Erin

xxx

Curious, Claire saw that there was another letter in the envelope. She had lost contact with Louise after the end of the war and she was saddened to learn that she had died so young, but she was intrigued by what her friend terribly wanted her to know.

When she saw her name on the letter, her blood froze in her veins as she immediately recognized the handwriting. 

Dearest Claire,

I am beyond happy to read this wonderful news. I understand your fear and I do hope the baby is healthy. No words can express how joyous your letter made me. I wish I could be with you and take you in my arms.

I cannot wait to see you again and meet our beautiful baby. You have given me another reason to smile every day and to look forward to something more.

I love you with all of me,

Alex

He knew. 

Tears were streaming down on her face. Tears of happiness and tears of sadness. A weight she had been carrying for fifty years fell off her shoulders and her heart was suddenly filled with happiness.

Maybe Alex didn’t have the chance to know his daughter, but life had given him the time to know he was a father. 

Claire got up and went to sit by the window, looking at the city, the letter held against her heart. The sun was setting down in the sky and the night life was starting in the streets of Manhattan.

“Alex,” she whispered and smiled.

Once again, she wished she could speak to him and for the first time, she felt his presence in the room. Maybe she was becoming crazy, maybe she was tired or very old, but she didn’t care. She had never felt this good in years.

“Alex… I am so sorry… So sorry it took me so much time to talk about you. It feels so good, darling. I feel like… I am ready.” she breathed. “I am ready to see you again.”

She swallowed her tears and smiled. She was peaceful. “I told Brianna your story, but I feel you deserve to know her story. She was born on a grey Sunday morning in New York. I named her Brianna Ellen Malcolm Beauchamp. After your father and mother. No need to hide the fact that the doctor thought Malcolm was an odd name for a little lass,” Claire smiled to herself. 

She told him everything. Her daughter’s life, but she also told him all the times she’d missed him. All the times she cried for him. On birthdays, on Christmas days. Words flowed out of her and when her story was over, she breathed for the first time in a very long time. 

“That day at the hospital, we said a lot of things, but there’s one thing I didn’t say. Couldn’t. I haven’t for fifty years. But I’m here and now it’s time. Goodbye Alexander Malcolm, my love. Rest easy, soldier.”

That night, Claire called her granddaughter and thanked her for her research. They talked for a while and before they hung up, Claire told her she loved her very much. 

“I love you too, Grandma. I can’t wait to see you again!”

“Me too, my love,” Claire whispered. “Say hello to your mother and father for me. Tell them I love them.”

“Grandma says hello!” Erin screamed over the phone to her parents, making Claire chuckle. “She says she loves you.”

“Hello, Mama! Love you,” she heard Brianna say.

Claire smiled and closed her eyes. The sound of her daughter’s voice always made her smile. 

After they hung up, Claire prepared to sleep and went to bed, looking at the picture for a moment, like she did every night ever since Erin found it.

She closed the light on the nightstand and closed her eyes, holding the picture against her heart and fell asleep.

In her dream, she was in the cottage in the Highlands she often dreamed about. In the cottage where they had planned to live their life, grow old together and have children. 

Her body wasn’t aching. She was young and beautiful again. Fearless and adventurous. She walked through the main door and saw Alex waiting by the window, looking outside with his hands buried in his pockets.

He was as handsome as ever. And real. Like he had been all those years ago. 

She watched him for a moment, until he noticed her presence and turned around a big smile on his face. “Ready to come home?” he asked her.

“Yes.” 

He walked to her and embraced her. She kissed him and melted into him. 

Finally, he had found her.


	10. Now is Not the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this fic and for the support! It means a lot! I hope you enjoyed reading Crossfire as much as I enjoyed writing it! And I hope you will love the last chapter!

January 1993

Claire opened her eyes and saw, like every morning for the past week, that she was still in the same beige room, on the same too hard mattress. She sighed and closed her eyes again, not ready to face another day. 

She wished she was dead. She really thought she was going to die, that other day. Her dream of Alex had been so real. Like never before. And she had dreamed a lot about him. 

If she was going to spend her life in this retirement house, she thought she’d rather get done with it. She had had a great run and she was ready to finish her life. She had worked in a hospital, healed many patients, who even years after a surgery were still thankful to her; she had raised a beautiful, strong and independent woman who was now the mother of a brilliant little girl. She knew she could leave in peace. 

But she hadn’t died. And Claire believed there was a reason to it. She wasn’t into that kind of beliefs, but she hoped perhaps she still had something coming in her life. Something more than waking up every day looking at the same window, eating the same tasteless breakfast and talking with the same boring people. 

The nurse finally arrived with her breakfast. She was all smiling, with red lipstick and wild blond hair. Claire thought she would like to know the reason behind this smile. Clearly, it wasn’t because she was bringing breakfast to a maussade lady. 

“Good morning, Mrs Beauchamp! How are you feeling today?”

“Do I really need to answer that question?” Claire asked. 

The nurse, Pamela, smiled and shook her head. “Mrs Beauchamp, things will be so much better if you start seeing the positivity in life. Today is a sunny day, which is rare for January. Enjoy it!”

“When I go under the sun, I end up with a headache. I prefer rain.”

Pamela sighed and crossed her arms. “Your daughter told me you like to read.”

“I used to like to read. Books nowadays are all the same. No creativity, filled with typos.”

“Well, just know that there is a beautiful library on the third floor with thousands of books dating from Jesus Christ to today, so if you find yourself wandering in the halls today, and we both know you will,” Pamela whispered, “you could go and check it.” She winked and left the room. 

Claire sighed, but smiled in her head. She was starting to like this Pamela. She wasn’t impressed by her bad temper. 

Eventually, Claire was tired of watching the news from France so she turned off the TV and decided to visit this library Pamela was talking about. After all, she had nothing else to do. And she could read a good book. 

She put on a wool vest and walked to the elevator. The doors closed and Claire looked at her reflection in the mirrored walls. She looked old and tired, yet she could still see a part of her old self in her. She had more grey hairs than before, but she realized she didn’t hate the look. She wondered what Alex would think of her grey hair. Hell, would he have grey hair by now?

She waved any thoughts of him away and walked out of the elevator. She easily found the library and was surprised by how cosy it looked. She entered, looking around with wild eyes. Pamela was right, there were thousands of books and a fireplace. 

Claire wandered around, looking at many books from different countries. She saw a few that caught her attention and finally went to the desk with six books. 

The librarian looked at her with furrowed brows. “There’s a limit of three books per resident.”

Claire sighed. “Well, I’m not going anywhere so…”

The librarian sighed and asked for her name and room number. 

“Claire Beauchamp. Room 43.”

“Alright, Mrs Beauchamp,” the librarian said, running a hand in her brown hair. “But now you have to pick three. That’s the rule. You’ll just have to come back in a week and borrow the other three. 

“I really don’t like your attitude, young woman,” Claire said, finally deciding to pick three books. “What if someone borrows them in the meantime?”

“You’ll just borrow them the time after. They’re not going anywhere either.”

Claire narrowed her eyes at her. She disliked people of this generation. 

“Well, then…” 

She went to grab her books when she heard a voice that made her heart stop. At first, she thought she’d imagined it, but when the voice spoke a second time, she knew it was true. 

“Claire? Claire Beauchamp?”

She slowly turned around, her hands slightly shaking, and found herself face to face with a ghost. A tall, handsome red headed ghost. 

“It can’t be,” she whispered. Yet, she knew it was him. 

“It’s really you,” he said, taking a step towards her. 

“You’re not real,” she shook her head. It wouldn’t be the first time she would see him. “He’s not real?” She asked the librarian who only frowned and left for the backstore. 

“Claire… Do you recognize me?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “How is it possible?”

He took another step and gave her a hand. She hesitated, but looked up in his ocean blue eyes and took it. She immediately recognized the warmth his hand. It was older now, like the rest of his body, but it was the same hand she had held all those years ago. 

“I thought you were dead,” she said, her voice filled with emotions. 

Tears were veiling their eyes, both not believing who was standing in front of them. Fifty years later. 

“So did I.” 

She jumped in his arms and held him tightly. He threw his arms around her and she melted against him. They both cried, holding each other for minutes. It felt like a really long time, but also like a very short time after all those years longing for the other. 

When they pulled back, he put a hand on her cheek and wiped a tear away with his thumb. “God, you’re so beautiful.”

“You must be losing all eyesight.”

He chuckled, tears streaming down his face. 

“You’re beautiful too,” she cried and he bent to press his forehead against hers. If she was dreaming, she never wanted to wake up. 

“I saw you so many times. You came to me so often. When I was in a fever, when I needed you I would see you. Smiling with your hair curled around your face. But you never touched me,” he said, looking down at their linked hands. 

“I can touch you now,” she said, her nose resting against his. 

“What happened to you? All those years? Where have you been?”

“Where have you been? They told me you’d been killed!”

“Aye,” he nodded. “And I thought I was dead, Sassenach. But let’s not talk here. Let’s go to my room.”

They were sitting on Alex’s bed, close to each other, their hands linked. 

“I was taken prisoner of war. It’s a long story, but they took me for someone else. It was the end of the war, ye see. Everybody was… restless. Then, when the war ended, I tried to look for you, but you had left the hospital and went back home. I tried to write to you, I really did Claire, but nobody could find you. When the war ended, I went to New York, searching for you in every hospital, but nobody kent who you were. I went to the University, but they said you weren’t studying there.”

“I really wanted to study in New York, hoping you’d come find me, but John said Harvard was better and he knew someone who could let me in. I didn’t know what to do. I was always thinking I shouldn’t move too far away in case you’d come back. Oh, Alex. I was so sad, always hoping you’d come and find me.”

He closed his eyes and nodded. “I wished I’d found you sooner. I moved to New York just in case I would see you somewhere one day. I knew the chances were low, but it was my last hope. Every time I went out, I was searching your face in every crowd.”

“Did you get married?”

“No,” he shook his head, when realization crept on his face. “The bairn?”

“She was healthy and she is alive.” Claire smiled. “Her name is Brianna. She’s a professor at Harvard and the mother of a beautiful daughter.”

“Thank God,” he whispered, relieved. “All those years, I was worried about you and the bairn. Praying she would be safe and healthy.”

“She is. And she is beautiful. Just like you.”

He smiled and looked up at her. “She knows?”

Claire nodded. 

“Do you think I could meet her? I’d love to at least see her.”

“I think she would be more than happy to meet her father.”

“And you? Did you marrit?”

“I did, but it wasn’t like that.” 

She told him everything about John and he nodded, understanding. “I never loved anyone but you,” she whispered. 

“Me neither, Claire. It was always you.” He lifted her chin and kissed her. 

They spent the day talking and getting to know each other again. After almost fifty years, they had changed a lot. Alex told Claire he wasn’t the man she once knew. “We both know each other less than when we met.”

It was true, yet Claire felt like she had known him all this time and those years spent apart didn’t change anything. “I want you,” She smiled. “Any way I can.”

When the time came to go back to their room for the night, they explained their situation to Pamela and she let Claire spend the night in his room. 

Alex had been living in this room much longer than Claire. After falling sick, a year ago, he decided to come live in the retirement house. He was living alone in a small apartment and thought this place would give him the chance to meet new people. “You were never the talkative type. It must have been hard for you to make friends here.” She whispered in the night. They were in his bed, facing each other with their hands linked. 

“I didn’t really make friends, if you must know,” he chuckled. “But I met you.”

He kissed her and it wasn’t long until the kiss turned into something more. “You say you’ve changed a lot in the past…” Claire said, pulling back a little. “Well, me too. I’ve changed quite a lot. Uh… let’s say gravity has done its work.”

Alex laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. “Well, if you must know, me too.” He was smiling, looking at her with shiny eyes, filled with love. 

She kissed him tentatively and it wasn’t long before they connected as if they had never parted ways. They made love slowly, looking into the other’s eyes, hands touching, gently exploring a body they once knew by heart.

The days after they found each other were like a dream. Claire dyed her hair black, wanting to look a bit like her old self. She told Alex it wasn’t fair because his hair were still mostly red, even if he had white hair on his temples. 

When Claire called Brianna to tell her about all of this, the family jumped on the first train and came to meet this famous Alex. It was an emotional moment they spent in his room. They ate together and talked. There was an immediate connection between Alex and his daughter. His granddaughter never left his side and liked to run her hands in his hair, captivated. Claire smiled, looking at them, her heart filled with joy. She couldn’t be happier.

A few weeks went by and the doctors noticed a considerable improvement in Claire’s condition. Her health was better than it had been in years and Alex’s illness seemed to be stable. They were told they could leave the retirement house if they wanted to.

October 1993

Claire woke up, feeling something tickle her nose. She opened one eye and saw Alex sitting next to her in bed with a flower in his hand.

“Happy birthday, beautiful,” he smiled, winking at her. Over the years, his winking talents had not improved.

“You remember,” she smiled and sat up. At seventy-three, Claire was feeling healthier than ever. After seeing Alex again, her whole life changed. She started taking more care of herself and now, she didn’t look past sixty-five. Alex had changed considerably as well. He had lost the weight he had gained over the years and his face look less tired than it did a few months before.

“How could I forget? Here. I made you breakfast,” he pointed a plate on the nightstand with his chin. There were scrambled eggs and bacon in it, with a full glass of fresh pressed orange juice.

“The doctor said I shouldn’t eat bacon,” Claire smirked, taking a bit.

“I think for today, he wouldn’t mind.”

“Did you bring my vitamins? And my probiotics?”

“Aye. Here,” he gave her the pills and she took them with a long sip of juice. 

“You really think of everything, don’t you?” she grinned, putting her fingers under his chin to kiss him.

“I try to. With a wife like ye, I dinna want to forget anything,” he smirked, kissing her back. 

Two months after they saw each other again, Brianna and Andrew, with the help of a very enthusiastic Erin, planned a little scottish wedding for the two lovers. They married in the little cottage Brianna bought for them in Glencoe, with sheep around. 

Claire and Alex worked on the farm with the help of two employes and Brianna moved to Edinburgh with her family, where she started working at the University. Andrew was happy to be back home and Erin loved the idea of a new adventure. She was a lot like her grandmother. Every Sunday, the family reunited at the cottage for brunch and went on a walk on the lands. 

Claire and Alex lived a peaceful, happy life. The fifty years of sorrow weren’t too far in their heads, yet, it didn’t haunt them like it used to. 

“What would you like to do for your birthday?” Alex asked, taking a bit of eggs Claire was offering him.

“Let me tell you what I don’t want to do.”

“Tell me,” he smirked.

Claire held his gaze and but the plate back on the nightstand. “Get out of bed,” she said, pulling him on top of her. He chuckled and kissed her. 

“The kids are coming for supper.”

“We have the whole day to ourselves,” Claire smiled, running a hand in his curls. They were almost all white now.

“We have until the end of our life.”

Life had stolen fifty years of their life, but gave them fifteen years in return.

Claire and Alex died at the age of eighty eight and ninety. They died holding hands in their bed facing a bay window and unending lands.

Every day of their life, after they saw each other again, they spent it together. They refused to be separated, even just for a few hours. They loved each other deeply, with a passion that made them live until they were very old.


End file.
